Your computer may contain several files which are important and sensitive. You may have some Word documents, emails, photos, pictures, videos, music, and other types of documents / files containing information important to you. Similarly, your browser may contain details of the websites visited by you in the browsing history, cookies, temporary Internet files, etc. You may like to protect all these files and data from the prying eyes. One simple protection needed to keep all your files confidential is to have a password for your Microsoft Windows user account, and then make “My Documents” folder as “private”. This will ensure that no other person having access to your computer would be able to see your files. I know many people who don’t use a password to protect their Windows user accounts; this means that when the computer / laptop is switched on, Windows may directly load without there being any need to enter the password if there is only one user account on the computer; and, even if there are more than one users, a Windows user account which has no password can be directly loaded just by clicking on the user name on the “Welcome screen” or the login screen when the Windows starts. In fact, it is very easy to create a password for a Windows user account, and it will ensure the privacy and secrecy of your files and other information such as your browsing history.
Even on your home computer, it is advantageous to create a password for your user account. If there are more members in the family who use the computer, then you can create a separate Windows user account for each family member. And, each such user account should be protected by a password. This will ensure privacy of the files and data in those user accounts. This will also help protect your privacy if some guest or friend or visitor comes to your house and has access to your PC in your absence.
Creating a password for a Windows user account is very easy, in fact. For doing so, proceed as under:
(1) Click on Start button, and then select Control Panel. Now, from the Control Panel, select User Accounts. Following dialog box will appear on the screen:
(2) From this dialog box, under the section “pick an account to change“, you can directly select the user account for which you want to create the password.
Or else, under the section “Pick a task“, click on “Change an account“. The following dialog box will appear, from which you can select the user account for which you want to create the password:
(3) In either case, you see the following dialog box appearing on the screen:
This dialog box displays several options relevant to the user account selected by you. One of the options is “Create a password“. Click on this option and you’ll see the following dialog box appearing on the screen that allows you to create a new password for your selected Windows user account:
Now, enter a new password in the text box meant for that purpose, and confirm the password by re-entering it in the next text box. If you want to use a password hint, that can help you in case you forget your password in future, you can type your word or phrase in the text box meant for that purpose; however, please remember that this password hint may be visible to everyone who uses the computer. Once you have made the changes, click on “Create password” button.
That’s it! This process will create a password for your selected Windows user account. Henceforth, you’ll be able to login to this user account only by entering this password.
Once you’ve created a password for your user account on Microsoft Windows computer, the next step is to make your “My Documents” folder “private” so that other users on the same computer cannot see your files and other user data stored in your “My Documents” folder or in any of its sub-folders. To learn more about what are the benefits of making “My Documents” a private folder, and how to do it, see my earlier article, How to make My Documents private in XP so that other users cannot access.
If you’ve properly followed all the steps mentioned in this article, then your files and data will now be secure and private from other users on the same computer, and no other user will be able to either login to your account or to view your files. However, just take care to select a strong password so that others cannot guess it easily.
Did you like this article? To get all such articles from Tech Superb directly:
Related Articles:
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
