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General discussion

Apologies to Kees

Apr 6, 2004 9:35AM PDT

I've been trying to post a messge in a thread I opened entitled "Good and free popup manager" (I corrected this later to read start up manager). However, when I press Review Message, I get no response. This happened several times. So I'm posting it as new discussion because I want to get the message to Kees. Here it is:

Apologies to Kees

I am chagrined that it has taken me so long to respond after Kees went to the trouble of taking my case on and providing a way out. The unfortunate fact is that when I encountered some problems setting things up as Kees suggested and I undertook to see if I could educate myself about Network, User, and Password and how they interact. Well, I got nothing but unwelcome surprises and problems and kept putting things off till another time, only to find that the "another time" was no better. Then, I had to take a little vacation from the problem to restore my sanity.

However, I have created separate profiles for my granddaughter (Chee') and myself. I keep changing my mind about how I would prefer things to be set up. Right now, because of something or other that I did, when I boot up I get a log on window in which the user has to enter his/her username and password, or else check the X or maybe Cancel (which results in a much slower boot up).

What I would like is to get back the old log on window which contains a list of users with the password box grayed out, so that a person just needs to highlight his/her username to open his/her profile version. But trying to get that back is one of the things that has consumed my time, patience and serenity.

I also spent (wasted?) time and energy trying to understand exactly what the significance is of the two "Include" options in Password. I have checked both of them, "Include desktop icons and Network Neighborhood contents in user settings" and "Include Start menu and Program groups in user settings" without knowing the significance of that.

The same with the option in User Settings, in the Personalized Items Settings window of "Create new items to save disk space" (which I checked for Chee') Or "Create copies of the current icons and their contents" (which I checked for me). I assumed that the Create copies option gave my profile all the stuff that I had on the computer before I created the profiles. If that is correct, I now wonder if that means that all that stuff is now duplicated so that it is on my profile and on the old log on s well, so that I should somehow get rid of it in the old log on.

The main thing I wonder is, how in the hell do you experts learn about all this stuff? For example, I couldn't find any explanation of User, Passwords, or Network Properties anywhere. I've decided that either the info is encrypted in your brains at birth or there is some secret society that you join that explains things.

Again, I apologize to Kees for waiting so long to acknowledge his willingness to help me out.

I still get the AIM sign on window when I boot up but it now seems like a pretty minor problem. I haven?t tried to remove it in my profile yet because I want to be sure I?m not getting rid of information that Chee? feels is vital to her very existence.

Discussion is locked

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Changing (form of) logon window.
Apr 6, 2004 5:06PM PDT

It's explained (for Windows 9Cool with nice examples in http://board.iexbeta.com/ibf10/index.php?s=83a8c2e54b39334c94717c68dd00bc14&showtopic=35673

It's the 'primary logon' type in Control Panel>Networks: either Windows or Windows Family, that determines how it looks.

I agree the documentation and the help isn't optimal. It takes experimenting, searching with google, reading forums, reading books from the local library, experience and a little bit of guts.

My advice is: if your happy with the setup, leave it as it is. No need to optimize up to the last. You don't really mind if you and Chee have separate Temporary Internet Files, do you? I've got the strong impression that my daughter and I do share them, and my son has his own, and that must be because I - like you - just clicked something without fully understanding it.
Your own desktop, your own Start Menu, and your own IE Favorites and history, that's the most important thing. And your own e-mail files (but you need different accounts with an ISP for that).
Whatever you do, you can read each others documents in Windows 98 without any trouble, so security isn't what it's all about, only convenience.

Wish you and Chee happy computing.

Kees

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Gracias, amigo
Apr 7, 2004 1:07AM PDT

In Network, I switched from Windows Logon to Windows Family Logon to see what would happen and sure enough got the logon change that Desert Storm referred to in the website you cited. I guess it would have been a lot of trouble for Windows to say that in its so-called Help window. I nominate you to write a new Windows Help book.

Yes, I'm satified with the way things are. You know, you mention the need for guts to learn, and I appreciate what you are saying. But sometimes it takes a different form of guts to let things alone and to quell one's curiosity about matters that don't matter. I'm sometimes inclined to want to know more about some things that really don't matter.

I remember someone saying "is this the hill you want to die on" when asking whether I wanted to make a big issue out of something rather non-consequential and which I would probably have lost had I pursued it. Kind of reminds me to make sure that the issues I pursue in computers are ones that really matter to me, so I won't spend a lot of time and frustrattion over non-consequential matters.

One of these days we'll be able to clone folks like you and both computering and the world will be a better place for it.

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(NT) You're welcome.
Apr 7, 2004 4:36AM PDT

.