Password Protection for Windows XP Home

I know thats there's a way to password protect Windows XP Home, and not the useless kind of protection that you got from Windows 98, ect... I'm not exactly sure to what extent this protection goes, whether each account gets a different password to log on (I have 4 accounts, Its kind of the family computer so everyone has their own account) or you have to enter a password immediately when you boot up and that opens up all accounts. Anyway, I appreciate if someone would help me with this. Also I was wondering if anyone knew any alternative programs for XP Home that would do the same thing and might do it better. Nothing too complicated, I'm a noob and rather not mess around with too much quite yet. Thanks

you can set it so each user has a seperate account and login. Someone is the Administrator, and has access to all settings, and others are limited users, were you can set people to have access to X, Y, and Z.

Would you be able to walk me through how to do that if its not too much of a bother. I know what you're talking about, I just don't know how to do it. Thanks .

Start > Control Panel > User Accounts

Digging this thread up from the deep, DEEP past. Anyway, was wondering, and coming back to the issue if there is a third party program that does the same sort of thing, but is more extensive at it as in allowing 128-bit password protection as opposed to 8-10 alphanumeric. Heard there was one out there before just for logon, logoff. Does that ring a bell for anyone.

sorry I see no thread in your post

Oh, so very sorry about that. Here you are jajmon:

Umm just curious, but why would you need such strong password protection on a family computer? I mean the built in Windows password system works well enough for must businesses.

Is it the welcome screen displaying all of the users that bothers you?

ErikD said:

Umm just curious, but why would you need such strong password protection on a family computer? I mean the built in Windows password system works well enough for must businesses.

Is it the welcome screen displaying all of the users that bothers you?

Click to expand...

Well, I set it up for only one user so that isn't an issue and to me there is no such thing as "strong enough" password protection. Not that I have a great chance of being hacked into in the first place, but better to be more prepared and protected then less.

Windows passwords are easily changedm so you are smart to want another way to lock it down. One thing if your the only user is set a Bios password, though thats easily hacked also its much harder since the person would have to open your pc. You may want to check out these two links. They seem to have some info you could use:
http://www.softheap.com/restrict_access_pc.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_6103_password-protect-windows.html

Looks cool tenchi. Thanks, I'll check them out . Sometimes I just wish I could set a 256-bit password for Windows and forget about it. Then my problems would be over and that would make sense, wouldn't it. Instead, windows sets the mark on a certain number of characters . Smart, huh . Damn you Windows default! You would think a company as big as Microsoft would figure out something so simple, but no! Whoever first said truth is often scarier then fantasy was right on.