Put the "personal" back into your PC

Some things are meant to be shared: sunsets, red wine, and diaper duty, to name a few. Sharing a computer, however, can leave you longing for privacy, with no one piling up files on your desktop, or deleting your list of Favorites.

Now you can enjoy the best of both worlds. Windows Me lets you share and be selfish at the same time. You can set up your computer for multiple users, but also create your own custom desktop, Favorites list, and e-mail folders—regardless of who else uses your computer.

Claim your personal space
When you set up Windows Me for multiple users, each person gets a personal profile that stores his or her individual settings, including a private My Documents folder, personal Favorites list, and his or her own e-mail folders. Follow these steps to set up Windows Me for multiple users:

1. Click the Start button, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click the Users icon. A wizard helps you add your name and password, and choose which settings you want saved for your profile.
3. To add another user, click the Users icon again, and then click the New User button.

Each time you start your computer, log on with your name and password. Windows Me will bring up your desktop the way you like it. Other family members or coworkers will be able to customize their own settings, too—without changing yours.

Receive your own mail
If you each have your own e-mail account, Outlook Express can create separate accounts for each person who logs on to Windows. This way, you get your own e-mail when you log on and other people can't access it.

If you do share an e-mail account with another person, you can't have completely separate mailboxes—but you can sort the mail so other people don't accidentally read messages that were intended for you. Use the Inbox Assistant to have incoming messages automatically sorted into separate mail folders, depending on the criteria you specify.

1. On the Tools menu in Outlook Express, click Message Rules, and then click Mail.
2. Specify how you want the messages sorted. If you want all messages from a certain person to be sorted, type that person's address in the From box. If you want to sort messages with a particular subject line, specify that subject in the Subject box.
3. Indicate what should happen to these messages. If you want to move them to a particular folder, click Move To, and then specify the folder you want to use. You can set up multiple rules for sorting incoming messages. To set your priorities, use the Move Up and Move Down buttons in the Inbox Assistant dialog box.

Share and share alike
Keep your desktop clean, your e-mail organized, and everyone happy. Windows Me will help you do it all.