Insider Power Techniques for Microsoft® Windows® XP

Getting the Most Out of User Accounts

In Windows XP, a user account is a user name (and an optional password) that uniquely identifies a person who uses the system. The user account enables Windows XP to control the user’s privileges; that is, the user’s access to system resources (permissions) and the user’s ability to run system tasks (rights). Standalone and workgroup machines use local user accounts that are maintained on the computer, while domain machines use global user accounts that are maintained on the domain controller. This section looks at local user accounts.

Security for Windows XP user accounts is handled most often (and most easily) by assigning each user to a particular security group. For example, the default Administrator account ...