I just bought a new Dell laptop with Windows 7. I’ve set up two user accounts, one for me and one for my wife. But when I download a program, like Chrome, it shows up only on my “half” of the computer.
Does anyone know a simple way to make all such programs available to all users? Or do I just have to download each program twice, once for each user?
Also, should I create three accounts – one for me, one for my wife and one administrator account that I wouldn’t normally use?
I’m not sure if this will work, but right click the desktop icon for the program, select Properties, open the Security tab, and click Edit. Does it allow you to add her username to the permissions list?
Chrome is a special case. The standard installer is designed only to install into the current user’s account. You need the standalone installer.Google documentation
Most other software will either only install for all users and prompt for the administrator access necessary to do so, or give the choice to install for the current user or all users.
Depends on how much you trust yourself. If you consider yourself relatively good with computers, know the difference (for example) between a JavaScript exploit, a Word macro, a zero-day worm and a trojaned executable, well, you can probably handle most threats with your standard anti-malware practices and with User Access Control left on.
If you’re not that great with computers, a separate admin account would be safer, yes, but you should still exercise moderate caution with your regular user account because that’s where all your documents and such live.
Note that this doesn’t just mean installing from an Administrator account, but also running the installer as an administrator.
Chrome is set up the way it is to make it easier to update in the background. If you install as an administrator, you also have to update those installed files as an administrator. Programs that don’t update so often are perfectly fine being installed as an ordinary user.
BTW, if you can create new accounts from your current account, then you already are an administrator. If you are really worried, you might want to make yourself a standard or limited user. Though this means that, any time you want to install something, you’ll have to either log into your administrator account, or hold down shift and right click on the installer, choose Run As, and then put in your Administrator username and password. So far, I have never actually went that far with any of the computers I’ve set up for others.