OK so if you all know about this why did nobody tell me before?
I don't know about anybody else, but I find that there are really far too many interesting things that I want to do on the computer,in particular on the internet.Having the abiity to write web pages is in itself a tremendous spur to my imgination and with I believe now some 80 million web sites available for viewing there is always something new to investigate.Ideas for new pages for my own web sites accumulate in my mind constantly , Therefore when I think of some vital point or see something on line to further any project my first inclination is to save it before I forget where I found it. at the same time I feel the need to have key items available to help monitor and remind me of jobs to be done/in progress/unfinished and of course the obvious place to store things is the desktop.Unfortunately there is only so much space there and then it rapidly becomes harder to find anything,and leaves me open to ridicule by my dear wife to boot!!
As an aid to finding things for some time I have been putting a shortcut to my desktop folder on the taskbar, then it is easier to get its detailed listing of files and folders .this is my current desktop on my older Windows 98 Pavilion computer:-
I now find that after only about 2 weeks on my new Windows XP equipped Heinz 57 computer that the problem is already getting acutely embarassing
I then went to try to make my usual desktop folder shortcut and discovered something very interesting to me.
Please read on...
Hitherto with Windows 98 I was used to having just one desktop folder on the hard drive in the Windows main folder.With Windows XP I could find no such folder, but by checking the properties of sample folders on the desktop I found that there is now a folder name "desktop" in the folder called "Documents and Settings" in a personal folder under my user's name plus there is a global folder called "all users".On a whim I investigated how to add more users, as on the initial installation being fearful of getting held to ransom by password demands I had limited myself to setting up just me as the sole user. I opened control panel and clicked the "User Accounts" icon and found I could then create new account. I did so as john2 then revisited the "Documents and Settings" folder sure enough there were now two users each with a named folder and inside each was a desktop folder. Eureka!!
Now I can place vital folders and files in a series of themed user accounts and by simply on the XP start menu
selecting "log-off John" then
"switch user" I get a display of all my users
I feel such a fool.....
(Oh do shut up you Sydney hooligan.. this is seriously useful stuff IMHO!!)
... because for years having at times sufferred the annoyance of Windows 98 requiring a log on operation and typing in a password to open, thus increasing the already overlong start up procedure,I have studuiously ignored the extra user system that I now see is incorporated in Windows 98 too.
To be fair to myself had I tried to set up extra users I would have been highly dissuaded by its opening line saying
"type a name to identify yourself to Windows enter a password if you want to'
I lost count of how often after the essential reinstalling of W98, when it inevitably misbehaved itself, I did not succeed in avoiding that nag screen popping up.
that's my excuse and I am sticking to it!!
John Fowles
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[ April 11, 2006, 17:21: Message edited by: johnfowles ]
