Help configuring my computer to load different for different users...

[jbow]

Hi, I am new here. My name is Julien and I am a gearaholic.

I am using Sonar4 and the computer I use most is my laptop. It's a P-4 2.66 with 768 RAM. I use a Tascam US-122 and have a 160G firewair HD for my data. I am mostly a guitar player and have the usual suspects as far as guitars and amps. I also use a POD. I use a Yamaha PSR-2100 for synth stuff. I have a ton of drum loops and I recommend the Beta Monkey loops, they are really good. Anyway...

My problem is this... sometimes other people use the laptop so I have two users set up. One for general use and one for recording however i find that if I change the programs that automatically load for one user, the changes affect both users. The way i've been getting around this for recording and still having the computer protected if someone else uses it is by running services.msc and manually stopping everything that I don't want to be running when I am using Sonar. This is a little bit of a pain but it works.
What I want to know is this: Is there way that I can make each user independent so that each will load services and apps differently.

Thanks,

Julien

 

[wheelema]

Microsoft has a rather cool app called Virtual PC. Let me see if I can get the concept across.

A PC running Virtual PC will have a copy of WinXP Pro as the base OS. The base OS is what every PC has from the get go... it's just not called the base OS because it's the only OS. But with Virtual PC you then load up a virtual PC on top of the base OS. The virtual PC has it's own drivers. Changes to the virtual PC do not affect the base OS. The virtual PC can be as viral ridden as a Parisian whore, and it won't bother the base OS.

The first drawback to this app is the HDD space required. The second is that the virtual PC is a completely seperate PC as far as Microsoft is concerned, so you need two copies of an OS (the virtual PC can be Win98, or whatever, but the base OS must be WinXP Pro). If you want Microsoft Office on both PCs, then you need two licensed copies, etc. Apps installed on a virtual PC are not accessible from the base OS, and vice a versa.

Now, you can have as many virtual PCs as you want, keeping in mind the constraints above. You can configure the PC to load a virtual PC depending on which user profile signs on. You can configure the virtual PC so that the user cannot get to the base OS.

WinXP Pro, by itself, will not accomplish what you need unless it is part of a server based network.

 

[jbow]

I was afeared of that. I guess it'll be easier to just stop everything whenever I want to use it for music production. It don't really take that long. I just have to remember to stop all the stuff. There's auto updates, firewall, most of the things listed in services.msc and if there's anything else I can't remember right now. That's what worries me that i'll forget something that will start an update or give me some kind of warning at just the wrong time. I guess I need a checklist...hmmm, did I think of that?

Well thanks fo the info, it's what I needed.

Jb

Microsoft has a rather cool app called Virtual PC. Let me see if I can get the concept across.

A PC running Virtual PC will have a copy of WinXP Pro as the base OS. The base OS is what every PC has from the get go... it's just not called the base OS because it's the only OS. But with Virtual PC you then load up a virtual PC on top of the base OS. The virtual PC has it's own drivers. Changes to the virtual PC do not affect the base OS. The virtual PC can be as viral ridden as a Parisian whore, and it won't bother the base OS.

The first drawback to this app is the HDD space required. The second is that the virtual PC is a completely seperate PC as far as Microsoft is concerned, so you need two copies of an OS (the virtual PC can be Win98, or whatever, but the base OS must be WinXP Pro). If you want Microsoft Office on both PCs, then you need two licensed copies, etc. Apps installed on a virtual PC are not accessible from the base OS, and vice a versa.

Now, you can have as many virtual PCs as you want, keeping in mind the constraints above. You can configure the PC to load a virtual PC depending on which user profile signs on. You can configure the virtual PC so that the user cannot get to the base OS.

WinXP Pro, by itself, will not accomplish what you need unless it is part of a server based network.

 

[crankz1]

Check out BlackViper.com on XP Services.
You can set up multiple Hardware Profiles and boot to the one that suites the particular method of computing at the time.
Instructions for multiple Profiles is under one of the links on that page.

HTH

 

[Jim Y]

Ditto what Crankz1 said.

With hardware profiles, you can disable services per profile. On top of that, you can disable unneeded hardware per profile to free up even more resources.
Right click My Computer, select properties and it's on the Hardware tab.
Copy the original profile and re-name it. A restart should see you getting a choice of profiles and when one is started, your changes can be permenantly applied.