problem with setting up user accounts

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From: removethis (alexrd(removethis)_at_shaw.ca)
Date: 05/07/04 

Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 21:36:01 -0700

I'm sure this is a dumb question, but I've looked through all the info I can without success, and am a new XP Home user.

After finally getting the hardware of my new PC working properly (a memeory chip problem I was told), I have had it (Athlon 2400 with 512Mb RAM, GE Force FX 5200 video card connected to Internet with broadband cable connection) running with XP Home Service Pk 1 with no error messages and none of the previous error message problems for several days now. I ran into a problem tonight when I tried to change and add user accounts (isn't this quite basic?). Under User Accounts, there was Owner (sys admin) and Guest (not active). I changed the name of the Owner acct, changed the picture and added a password. I also created another account, with limited access, and changed its picture. After getting back to the Desktop, I logged off, saw icons for both of the accounts (as changed), but when I logged back on (to the sys admin account I think), an error message appeared as the desktop appeared - "System recovering from a serious error, do you want to send an error report," etc. etc. (saw lots of this during previ
ous problems) - I followed instructions to send the complete error dump to Microsoft. I then logged back in/out on both accounts a couple of times - no return of the error message. I rebooted and again, no error message. However (and I'm not sure the problem just described is related to what follows, but) when I logged on to the 2nd, limited access account, I found:
1. Not all of the icons that were present in the original user account (called Owner) were on Desktop - e.g. My Documents, My Computer, Internet Explorer were absent, although these programs were all still present - more importantly, however

2. When I attempted to log on to Internet Explorer, I was unable to; Explorer window came up wth "website found - waiting" in bottom left, then - "timeout - could not find server."

I logged off this account, and logged onto the sys admin account - no problem with accessing Internet immediately with this account.

I went back and changed the 2nd account status to "sys admin" as well, logged off, then logged back on with this modified user account - still no Internet connection

I checked the "Internet Properties" window in both accounts - they seem to be identical - in particular, the homepage in both is set to "..............=msnhome"

I'm sorry for such a long winded e-mail, but this is my first try to get help this way and I wanted to describe the problem as fully as I can. Can anyone help me:

1. solve the problem of inability to connect to the Net with this second account

and

2. tell me how to set up a second user account that has identical settings to the original "Owner" user account that I had been using until I attempted these changes.

Thanx so much for any help you can offer!

Signed: an enthusiastic but perplexed XP Home user.

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