When you first install Microsoft Windows 7, or any other Microsoft Operating System, you are prompted to create a new user account at the beginning. This will become the master account for the computer, more commonly known as the Administrator Account.

Most users will continue to use their computer logged in with the Administrator account and why wouldn’t they? It can actually be a very bad idea to use the Administrator account for normal every day use when logged into the computer more so on servers. Its highly recommend to create a new user account with less access privileges than a administrator account to lower the risk of a computer virus accessing everything on your hard drive.

How to create a new user account in Windows 7

Like Windows XP and Vista creating a new user account in Windows 7 is very simple and like previous editions there is more than one way to create a new user account.

In this post I will discuss how to use the User Accounts option in the control panel and will cover the computer management console under Administrative Tools at a later date.

To get started open the control panel in Windows 7 by clicking on Start > Control Panel and locate the User Accounts option, double click to open it.

When you open the User Accounts screen you will be faced with the options for your current account, more than likely the Administrator account. You don’t want to make any changes to your Admin account just yet so locate the link for Manage another account and click on it.

You will now be faced with user accounts available to manage. If you are setting up Windows 7 for the first time you should see the Administrator account and the Guest account (disabled by default).

Underneath the main window locate the link for Create a new account and click on it.

You will now be prompted to enter a name for the new account and the type of account you wish to create. Enter a name you think is appropriate for the new user, either by name or some other reference for the user.

Make sure that Standard User is selected and click on Create Account to set-up the new account.

Once you create a new account you will be brought back to the main account management screen. You should now be able to view the newly created account.

You might not have noticed when creating the new account you were not prompted to create a new password during the set-up, this is next.

Click on the new account to change its password.

When you are in the main management screen for the new user account you will see a number of options (as shown above). For now we are only interested in changing its password so locate and click on the link for Change your password.

You will be prompted to enter a new password twice , as always its recommended that you create a strong password. You can always use a password manager to keep track of any new passwords you create.

Once you have entered the new password twice and created a password hint (if you really need it) click on Create password to change the password of the newly created account.

And that is it!

This one of the first configuration steps to take with Microsoft Windows 7 when you load up the Windows 7 Desktop for the first time. These steps only take a few minutes to complete but can help prevent a virus from spreading on your computer and destroying everything.

It should be noted: A Standard User Account has more restrictions than the Administrator account, using security policies and groups you can restrict the Standard User account even more  depending on who will be using the account.