Web Talk

If you work or play on a computer shared with other people such as friends, family members, coworkers etc, you might feel the need to protect your files, settings and private information in a way that nobody, except you, will ever be able to read or modify them. Here are the links to a couple of articles explaining you how to prevent users from changing your display settings, disable the registry, prevent users from changing the color scheme,  and protect your programs and computer games. If you want to improve your privacy further, you might even set up a hidden user account so that nobody will ever be able to know you are using the computer. Here is the simple hack for Vista and XP.

1. In Windows Vista click Start and in the Search Box (Run in XP) type regedit and press Enter.
2. Locate the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon \SpecialAccounts\UserList
3. If you don’t find the SpecialAccounts and the UserList key, just create them!
4. Click UserList and in the right pane, right-click and select New – DWORD (32-bit) Value.
5. Now name the DWORD after the name of the account you want to make invisible (the account has to be already there, before creating the new DWORD!!! ).
6. Double click on the new DWORD and set it to 0 (zero).
7. Restart your computer for the change to take effect.
8. This trick will hide the the account from the Welcome Screen.