Managing Your Windows User Account

On the logon screen, each user account is represented by the user account name and also by a user account picture. Windows Vista comes with 12 user account pictures, representing a variety of animals, sports, and interests. You can select the picture that most closely matches your personality or interests. If none of the default pictures is to your liking, you can use a picture of your own.

You can use bitmap (BMP) files, Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) files, Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG) files, or Portable Network Graphics (PNG) files as user account pictures. The original graphic can be any size, but the user account picture is always displayed at 48 pixels high by 48 pixels wide. If you select a graphic whose height and width are not the same, the graphic will be stretched or cropped to a square shape when displayed.

In this exercise, you will first change your user account picture to one provided by Windows Vista, and then you will switch to a custom graphic.

1.	In Control Panel, click User Accounts and Family Safety, and then under User Accounts, click the Change your account picture task. The Change Your Picture window displays the built-in user account picture options. [View full size image]
2.	Click any picture that you like, and then click Change Picture. Your new user account picture is shown in the User Accounts window. You can also see it at the top of the Start menu.
3.	In the User Accounts window, click the Change your picture task. Then in the Change Your Picture window, click Browse for more pictures. The Open dialog box displays the contents of your Pictures folder.
4.	In the Favorite Links list, click Documents, and then navigate to the MSP\SBS_WindowsVista\Chapter10 subfolder.
5.	Click the 02_Angelic image, and then click Open. The User Accounts window displays your custom picture. [View full size image] The custom picture is also now available in the Change Your Picture window.

Backing Up Your Windows Password When you protect your Windows Vista user account by assigning a password, you have the option of creating a password hint. Windows Vista displays the password hint if you enter an incorrect password. If you didn't save a password hint, you can reset your passwordbut in order to do so you must first have created a password reset disk. Tip You can create a password reset disk only for a local user account, not for a domain user account. If you password-protect your account, you might want to create a password reset disk in the event that you lose or forget your password. (It might sound unlikely, but it can happen, especially in an environment that requires you to change your password on a regular basis.) You can save the password reset file on either a USB flash drive or a floppy disk (but not on a CD). To create a password reset disk: 1. Insert a USB flash drive or floppy disk in your computer. 2. In Control Panel, click User Accounts and Family Safety, and then click User Accounts. 3. In the Tasks list, click the Create a password reset disk task. The Forgotten Password wizard starts. 4. On the Welcome page, click Next. 5. On the Create a Password Reset Disk page, select the USB flash drive or floppy disk drive you want to use, and then click Next. 6. On the Current User Account Password page, enter the password you use to log on to Windows Vista, and then click Next. 7. When the Progress bar displays 100% complete, click Next. Then click Finish. Be sure to store the password reset disk in a safe place, because anyone can use it to reset your password and gain access to your computer.