Need some advice on user accounts?

Hi

I would like to set up 2 users on my notebook. I'm using XP and Vista on it (dual boot) so ideally I'd like to do the same thing in both.

What I'd like to achieve is to have one user with the bare minimum services running and stuff installed in order to play games and the other account to have all my apps installed that I use outside of gaming.

I have one account already set up with the games and apps installed but I'd like to add the second account so that it has pretty much everything installed that is in the account that is already present and then I can delete all but the games and any apps that I don't need for gaming and turn off as many services as possible.

Please could someone advise me as to whether this is possible, both in XP Home SP3 and Vista HP SP1 and if so how I would go about doing it.

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

 

You can't remove applications for just one user, since Windows doesn't operate that way. You can control access to the applications by limiting security settings on the program directory itself, but that's about it. Some applications, during the install process, ask the question if all or just "you" can use the application, so that's something else to consider.

I'm curious - why do you want to do this?

 

Well I want to do this so I have a purely gaming profile, i.e. as few processes running as possible, and then the other profile would be for everyday stuff like photoshop, watching TV, surfing the web etc.

Plus I've never set up multiple profiles on the same computer, call it a learning exercise.

 

I think you are over complicating the issue. You really don't need to have different 'profiles' for different uses.

 

Ok so how do I achieve what I'm attempting to do then? What I basically want is a gaming user account where it has bare minimum services/processes running and very little other than games installed and a user account with everything else in (sorry said that before).

The only way I can see of doing that at the moment without setting up a separate user (which from what kegobeer said isn't going to work either) is to manually turn off all unnecessary processes and services each time I log into my notebook.

 

The point I am making is that you don't need to do that. The other stuff isn't going to impact your gaming at all. It is bordering along the lines of the tweakers who thin out their systems so much it doesn't work anymore.

 

You know what you want, so why not start setting it up? As Kegobeer said, you're not going to be able to start with a full suite of apps, etc., and pare them back to make this supposed "gaming" profile, so instead, you're going to have to format the hard drive, do a fresh, clean installation of your OSes, create the two user accounts - call them Gamer and Worker - then log into the Worker account and start installing your applications and, to the extent possible, selecting the "Install for this User Only" option - some apps'll offer it, some won't - for those things you don't want on Gamer.

Quite honestly, though, as atbnet says, you're not going to get some significant (or possibly even noticeable) difference out of this, other than the rhetorical flourishes of, say, different wallpapers or desktops, and a better use of your time would be to do regular system maintenance, avoiding dodgy websites, and not installing every free app you find that tickles your fancy just to see what it does (I don't know if you do any of that, probably you don't, but if you do, it's gonna leave a lotta detritus on your system that will slow it down).

 

I wanted to have the same as you (gaming profile and everyday profile), but stopped trying some days ago (under Vista)...

you can tweak from msconfig what services and background programs startup during bootup, so you can make a minimum boot for gaming... however you cannot save profiles, so you need to check/uncheck boxes of msconfig and restart everytime you want to switch from "gaming" to "everyday usage"...

I tried using other programs for this purpose and did not succeed...

Under XP, however, you can do this with "hardware profiles", but I never tried it...

good luck!