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Vista assumes that, sooner or later, more than one person will want to work on your PC. All sorts of problems crop up when several people share a PC.
Windows helps keep the peace by requiring people to log on. The process of logging on (also called signing on) lets Windows keep track of each person's settings: You tell Windows who you are, and Windows lets you play in your own sandbox.
 | Having personal settings that activate when you log on to Vista isn't heavy-duty security, at least on a stand-alone PC or one connected to a peer-to-peer "workgroup" network. (Big networks — domains — run Active Directory.) Unless your Vista PC is a slave to a big Active Directory domain network, your settings can get clobbered, and your files deleted, if someone else with access to your computer or your network tries hard enough. |
 | If someone else can put his or her hands on your computer, it isn't your computer any more. That can be a real problem if someone swipes your laptop, if the cleaning staff uses your PC after hours, or if a snoop breaks into your study. Unless you use BitLocker (found in the Enterprise and Ultimate versions of Vista), anybody who can restart your PC can look at, modify, or delete your files, or stick a virus on the PC. How? In most cases, a miscreant can bypass Windows directly and start your PC with some other operating system. With Vista out of the picture, compromising a PC doesn't take much work. |
When it's ready to get started, Vista greets you with a Welcome screen — variously called a "Logon screen" or a "Sign-on screen" as well. The screen lists all the users who have been signed up to use the computer. It may also show a catch-all user called "Guest."
Unless you assign a password to a specific account, nothing prevents anyone sitting at the computer — friend or foe — from clicking one of the other icons and logging on under an assumed identity. In general, Vista (unless it's connected to a big corporate network domain) relies on the gentlemanly conduct of all participants to keep its settings straight.
If you can't rely on gentlemanly conduct, you need to set up a password for your account, although a password doesn't give you much protection.
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