Multiple users on one Windows mail account
Posted by admin on Mar 21st, 2007
I'm the father of a family of 4 & the administrator of a new Vista OS. Is there a way all 4 users can access the same email account on Windows Mail? I don't want to allow all users access to my administrator user account to let them get the emails that are sent to the family generally. And I don't want to have inbound emails quadrupled just so we can each get them on our own account
Mar 23rd, 2007 at 11:19 pm
It's no problem setting up multiple user accounts to access the same email account. But, there is the issue of deciding how and when to remove messages from the server. It would be much, much easier and better to give each user their own email address and set up each user account to access only its own email address. "BEZBERRY"
Mar 25th, 2007 at 07:29 am
Eeks, what a pain. You'd do well to just give each family member a separate email account. That's how most people do it because it's easy, makes sense, works with the way things are designed, and there's no good reason not to do it that way. "Steve Cochran"
Mar 28th, 2007 at 06:06 pm
What you can do is act as a filter and only download the mail from your account. Then, since the messages are individual eml files, copy the messages you want them to see to a folder. Then you can copy that folder in Windows Explorer to a user directory that all users have access to. Then they can all access those messages via Windows Explorer browsing to that directory, rather than even needing WinMail to do it.So the administrator message store would be located underc:\users\adminname\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail\If you copied the messages in WinMail to a folder called Share, then the messages would be located under \Local Folders\Share. You can copy that directory to a location each user can access and then they can all see those messages, and not any others. steve"BEZBERRY"
Mar 29th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
The "right" way to do this is to give each user their own private Vista logon. Then, within each logon, only they will have access to their configured email account.This is the "standard" in computer security/privacy. Might as well learn it now, before needing to use it at work. O'course, next you're gonna tell me they are 8 years old and have a ways to go before "work". LOL!Frank"BEZBERRY"
Apr 1st, 2007 at 09:16 pm
You should not give children access to a computer that is logged in to an administrator account. One way to handle this is to print hard copies of any messages that are of general family interest. As the kids get older, they will need their own email account and their own (limited) Windows login.Gary VanderMolen "BEZBERRY"
Apr 7th, 2007 at 03:53 am
How do you know the ages of the members of his family? How do you know they are even "kids"?Frank"Gary VanderMolen"
Apr 8th, 2007 at 05:30 pm
"Family of four" implies that at least two kids are involved. The father did not think it appropriate for the other family members to have their own email accounts. If the kids were teenagers or older, I'm sure he'd see the wisdom of letting them have some privacy. Gary VanderMolen "Frankster"
Apr 12th, 2007 at 07:59 pm
Maybe you are psychic... LOL.I have a family of three. Myself, my wife, and my 88 year old mother in law. No kids.Frank
Apr 18th, 2007 at 09:14 am
"Frankster" OK, I was assuming an average "family". When an OP is sketchy with details sometimes you have to do a best guess. Gary VanderMolen
Apr 19th, 2007 at 01:08 am
"Gary VanderMolen" My take on the sketchiness (I agree) was that he did that for a reason. I suspected the reason was specifically because his case was not "average". And he didn't want "how to handle his family" type advice. Just Vista advice.Frank
Apr 20th, 2007 at 11:55 am
My husband and I always had separate email in outlook express because you could switch identities..........now we cant.........if I set up a separate user account for him, so he can have his own email account..........do we have to use passwords for everything on the pc?"Frankster" wrote:
Apr 24th, 2007 at 10:05 am
You can have a blank Windows user password, meaning Windows won't even ask you for the password. But if privacy is not the issue, why not have both of your email accounts under one user? If you do that, you may want to set up a filter rule to sort incoming mail into separate inboxes, His, and Hers. If you need help with that, just let me know.Gary VanderMolen"Reynolds"
Apr 30th, 2007 at 12:52 am
I found an easy way to do this... Much simpler than other posts. I only have 2 user accounts, but the process should be the same.I logged into my Wife's user account in Vista. Then I navigated the "C:\Users\Angie\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail" folder from My Computer... this is where Windows Mail saves her files. Right click on the folder and choose, Properties, then the Security Tab. Choose Edit on the security tab, then "Add" on the next window. Click the "Advanced" button and then "Find Now". A list of users will appear in the list... find your own user name in the list and select OK, then OK again... You should be at a window that says "Permissions for Windows Mail". Now look for your name in the list of users, select it, and then click the "Allow" check box for Full Control below. Hit OK until you get completely out. I then logged out of my wife's user account and into my own account. Then I opened Windows Mail, and went to Tools Options Advanced Maintenance Store Folder Change. Navigate through the directory tree and I found my wife's Mail folder at ":\Users\Angie\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail". and select OK until you back out. Microsoft will give you a message warning you that there's another Mail store already there and ask you if you want to use it... say OK. It will then tell you you have to restart Windows Mail. Next time you open Windows Mail, you will be asked for the email accounts' User Name and Password... once you provide it, you're in and have full access to a now "shared" Mail store. (Note... these are your ISP's email username and password, not your Windows username and password).The one downside is that when different users open Windows Mail, it asks you for your email User Name and Password again. My suggestion is to keep it written down somewhere handy. Somebody in another post suggested writing some batch files to automatically overwrite some files to eliminate the need to relogin every time you open Windows Mail, but that was beyond me... typing in passwords again was easy enough.I assume you can just repeat these steps a couple of extra times to add the other members of your family. Note that the "main" email folder I used was NOT in an administrator account... I don't know if this would work if you tried reversing it. Good Luck."BEZBERRY" wrote:
May 5th, 2007 at 01:39 am
The batch files are easy enough to create.Copy c:\saved\xxx.oeaccount c:\messagestore\xxx.oeaccountorcopy c:\saved2\xxx.oeaccount c:\messagestore\xxx.oeaccountSo you have two directories each of which stores the .oeaccount files. Then when you boot to one user, you run one command and when you boot to other user, you run the other command.steve"Matt in Texas"