Question from Aldrena K.: I have an Acer desktop computer running Windows 10.
I have always just used the Administrator account for everything I do on the computer, but I read on your site why that’s a bad idea.
I created a Standard user account for myself, but it only gives me access to the same programs that my son uses on his account.
How can I create a Standard user account for myself that lets me use all of my installed programs?
Rick’s answer: This is a situation that occurs fairly often Aldrena.
When you create a new Standard user account in Windows, that account is only given access to the programs that are available to all users. If you want to give that account access to additional programs, those programs must be installed separately for that user.
But luckily there is a very easy way to allow a new account to access all the programs available to the Administrator account. All you have to do is create the new account with Administrator privileges, then downgrade the account to a Standard account after it has been created.
Even after downgrading the new account from Administrator to Standard, you’ll still be able to use all of the programs that you were able to use when the account still had Admin privileges.
You just won’t be able to use that account to install programs for other users or make any system-wide changes to the Windows installation. You’ll need to log into your old Administrator account in order to do those kinds of things.
To get the ball rolling, just delete the account you just created and start over by creating a new Administrator account. Then you downgrade that new account to a standard user account and you’ll be all set.
By the way, this trick isn’t solely for Windows 10 users. It works in earlier versions of Windows as well.
I hope this helps Aldrena. Good luck!
Update from Aldrena: I did what you said and it worked perfectly. Thanks a bunch!!
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