How to set up multiple computers with multiple users and multiple cloud service accounts

This post spans a few categories, so thought it was just best to post in General.

For context, I am about to replace a few computers. One is a gaming laptop that I travel with, one is a family desktop PC with multiple users, and another is a dedicated gaming desktop. I use each of them, and have tried a few things over the years that may or may not really be working for me. I don't have a thorough understanding of how Windows user accounts function when set up and used optimally, nor what kind of flexibility there is with the location and use of User folders and cloud storage (Dropbox and OneDrive, multiple accounts on one computer). Mostly I've been using Win 10 the past several years, with some experience using Win 11. In the coming days, all of these computers will have fresh Windows 11 installs. This is my opportunity to set them all up with a consistent logic.

In the end, here is what (I think) I would like:

The family desktop PC would have at least four users, including myself. The laptop and gaming desktop are only used by me. I might want at least my own user account folders to reside within a OneDrive folder, not on the C: drive, so that they sync across each PC. I have experimented with that in the past (Win 10), and it seems to have been working. I would like the family PC to have user accounts such that each user has a clean experience without access to the files of other users (mainly to keep things clean and focused, not for security or privacy, though all of the above have value depending on how I end up using the family PC for extended family and guests). My immediate family does use Office 365, so we use OneDrive for some things. I also use Dropbox, and my wife uses my Dropbox account for some things. I want to have separation of our OneDrive accounts, which I think is simple enough. I would like to just limit Dropbox to my user account, and probably have my wife have access to only shared folders. I want to minimize (eliminate?) duplicate downloads, but still restrict access by other Windows user accounts to the local Dropbox folder in my user account. If my wife needs to have duplicate local files in just the shared folder, that would be fine (wouldn't be much). I should also point out that I have never and do not wish to use a Microsoft account to sign into Windows. I have always only used local accounts.

In the past, I have moved my Windows User folders off of C: drive and into my storage (call it S:) drive. As an experiment, I went so far as to move them into my S:\OneDrive folder on a couple of computers, which did seem to sync well between them (documents, game saves, etc.). I kept Downloads just in S:\Downloads so that they wouldn't sync, though I am on the fence whether that's better or not. I used to move User folders off of C: so that I could reformat my C: drive and not lose any User folders' content. Now I do it also so I can sync via OneDrive, and since I like to have my cloud storage on my S: drive. I used to only use C: drive for Windows and basic utility programs (not games, not storage). Most of my computers have had small C: drives (500GB or maybe 1TB at the most), with larger drives for games and storage. One problem I ran into was that, and I don't recall the exact reason, on my family PC, the Dropbox folder could be S:\Dropbox, but the OneDrive folders had to be S:\Cloud Storage\User 1\OneDrive and another for User 2. But on my laptop, with only one account, I used S:\Dropbox and S:\OneDrive. Not sure the best way to handle that with my use case. On my laptop and dedicated gaming desktop, my user folders were in S:\OneDrive\User. I'd like to streamline this and find consistency. I use a lot of hyperlinks in OneNote, and it's very helpful when things are stored in the same location locally across multiple PCs.

Is there a best-practice consensus/guide for setting up and using user accounts in Win 11 without going through a bunch of trial and error? With modern-day Windows logic, is it simply best to keep all of my user account folders on the C: drive and not worry about losing data in an emergency reformatting situation? Is it problematic to sync my user account folders via OneDrive, i.e., sync across multiple computers? I worried that something could go wrong with the sync, or that something would get overwritten that I'm not expecting. Some of the files themselves of course are cloud saved, so it's somewhat redundant, but not entirely. I could certainly get by without syncing my user folders if that's just too problematic. I usually manually backup my game saves anyway, so I really wouldn't miss out on much. It just depends on how much I'm having to move between computers, and travel with the laptop. If I should keep my user accounts and potentially cloud storage folders on C: drive, I will just need to rethink my SSD drive size/configuration. That's fine, if there's good reason to do that.

Thanks for any insights here! Trying to think through everything ahead of time. For the past several years, I've had less time to use and tweak my computers, but expecting that to change soon. So the things I've tried, I haven't really been able to test robustly. I'm just not clear about the overarching logic of what I've already tried and still want to implement. It's hard to think through it without just doing it, and I want to avoid needlessly doubling back too much.

Hi, @Rangoon and welcome the Elven Forum (11F)!

I have some thoughts on what you're looking to do, as well as some comments, but it is a long post, and I wanted to go ahead and extend a quick welcome first.

Plenty of others here will also have insight to provide soon enough, too, so stay tuned!

Rangoon said:

I don't have a thorough understanding of how Windows user accounts function when set up and used optimally, nor what kind of flexibility there is with the location and use of User folders and cloud storage (Dropbox and OneDrive, multiple accounts on one computer)

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First of all, on this, if each person is signing in with a Microsoft account, then the associated OneDrive account will make this a lot easier, if you have each user storing their stuff in OneDrive (Documents, Photos, Music, Videos, and, if you like, Desktop). It's a native solution that works well (enough) to keep things separated. And they should be relatively isolated enough, in that each user will have their own `\Users\{username}` folder on whatever drive `\Users` exists on, and should be protected by their credentials linked to their Microsoft account / local login credentials.

Rangoon said:

I should also point out that I have never and do not wish to use a Microsoft account to sign into Windows. I have always only used local accounts.

Click to expand...

This is still attainable, and easily - you would have to install Windows 11 with Internet disconnected, and once it is cleanly installed, create your first user account as a local account as in this tutorial here:


Note that there are options that require you to pick one method or another, with corresponding steps. One of those is first time setup using a Microsoft account (step 20) or a Local account (step 21).

Once you've navigated all of that, and you have your local account set up, then you can convert it to what one of our resident gurus has dubbed a Hybrid account, using this tutorial here:


Note how in step 7 Kari remarks that you continue to log in to Windows with the local credentials - I use this with my VMs for various Windows 10 and Windows 11 builds and it works flawlessly.

Now, once you've got the first account set up, you can continue to add more local accounts, using this tutorial:


And then use the previous tutorial to convert them all to Hybrid accounts as well, so each user will have access to their Microsoft account (and thus, be able to use OneDrive via their Microsoft 365 subscription logins) as well.

The reason I advocate for using OneDrive through Office365 / Microsoft365 is that the default OneDrive in Windows 11, unless recently replaced, only allows for 3 'special' folders to by automatically sync'd to the Microsoft account, whereas the Office version that gets installed when you install Office365 does 5:



With each user now having the Hybrid account set up, each will be able to sync (or not sync) those 5 folders automatically, along with anything else that you want to add to the mix.

While we're on the subject of OneDrive syncing, let me address this:

Rangoon said:

I kept Downloads just in S:\Downloads so that they wouldn't sync, though I am on the fence whether that's better or not.

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I do not sync my Downloads folder at all. If I need something saved to the OneDrive cloud, I move it to a folder where it will be - and 99,99% of applications that I can download from the Internet, well, I can download them again lol. Same with most other things too - but if I need to keep them - like, say, my completed tax returns in PDF format, I move them to a specific folder in `Documents` that is synced via OD to my Microsoft account. In this respect, though, it's up to you.

Now, as to DropBox, It's been a long, long time since I actually used it, and I cannot say whether DB will respect user logins (though I would hope that it did) and allow each person to log in to the account of choice but maintain a separate presence (and thus files and supporting infrastructure) per user. Hopefully someone else will be able to comment.

This is part one of my reply. I have some more coming, including some questions:

How many (physical) drives are you talking about in your system? I have 3 internal, and I use another one of our tutorials here to separate `\Users` to a completely separate drive, as I've done for a very long time, since Windows 7 days, and I absolutely love that separation of data and OS / programs. This tutorial from our sister site Ten Forums (10F) handles it nicely, and I still use it to this day, just in case you've been using another method to accomplish this after install:

Also, feel free to update your Computer profile with relevant info, as I have done - click the "My computers" link at the end of any of my posts

Rangoon said:

Is there a best-practice consensus/guide for setting up and using user accounts in Win 11 without going through a bunch of trial and error? With modern-day Windows logic, is it simply best to keep all of my user account folders on the C: drive and not worry about losing data in an emergency reformatting situation? Is it problematic to sync my user account folders via OneDrive, i.e., sync across multiple computers? I worried that something could go wrong with the sync, or that something would get overwritten that I'm not expecting. Some of the files themselves of course are cloud saved, so it's somewhat redundant, but not entirely. I could certainly get by without syncing my user folders if that's just too problematic. I usually manually backup my game saves anyway, so I really wouldn't miss out on much. It just depends on how much I'm having to move between computers, and travel with the laptop. If I should keep my user accounts and potentially cloud storage folders on C: drive, I will just need to rethink my SSD drive size/configuration. That's fine, if there's good reason to do that.

Click to expand...

As far as this is concerned, let me preface by first describing my own setup a little more.

As noted in my specs, I have 3x 2TB drives. One is my dedicated `System` drive, for programs and OS.

The second is for my `\Users` tree, with all the various sync'd folders for OneDrive, both Personal and Work. Naturally, that is not really as filled, so I install all of my games to this drive as well (by manually changing install locations across the various platforms, allowing me to have multiple large games without ever being worried about space).

The third is for my `Local` storage that doesn't get sync'd to a cloud. And I have a lot of that - including VMs, ISOs of various OSs, as well as numerous (over 200) programs that I use exclusively as portable versions, versus installing them - this allowing me the versatility to always have those ready to use even after a clean install, with 0 time spent installing them again.

Thus, I make use of that last tutorial to move `\Users` to the second physically separate drive on every clean install.

All this illustrates one key thing - that my needs are very different from the typical user's needs. And I reference this to make the following point:

You've laid out what you want to happen, and what you need (or in some cases, would really, really like) to have in terms of your setup. That is really good - but if you consider that many, many users out there are going to have their own wants and needs, then it leads to a fact that, while there might be some good general recommendations regarding so-called best-practices, a lot of those may either need to be amended to suit your needs, or, in a worst case scenario, not even be applicable.

That being said - IMO, and some will disagree, naturally, I absolutely never plan to leave all my data on the same drive as my OS, ever. But that is me. If a user doesn't have multiple drives, the issue is moot - they have no choice but to do so (and yes, while they could format and make a separate partition, it's still the same physical drive - and I'm much more concerned about physical drive failures than partition failures, or, I used to be before I went all NVMe SSDs lol). But, it also depends on how much time and effort you want to invest - and given your previous comments, it seems like you're wiling, and in fact, have already been doing so in the past.

As to whether it is a problem to sync - well, only inasmuch as it is to browser the web. Synchronizing to OneDrive will require active Internet connections, and thus, if the Internet has connectivity issues of any sort, your synchronization could be affected, though I'd be quite confident in stating that I've seen at least a 90%+ uptime with OneDrive over the years.

Rangoon said:

Thanks for any insights here! Trying to think through everything ahead of time. For the past several years, I've had less time to use and tweak my computers, but expecting that to change soon. So the things I've tried, I haven't really been able to test robustly. I'm just not clear about the overarching logic of what I've already tried and still want to implement. It's hard to think through it without just doing it, and I want to avoid needlessly doubling back too much.

Click to expand...

Also, let me preface this reply with this bit:

I realize that it may seem that I'm "over explaining" things a bit (or a lot lol), but that is to benefit future readers who come in here and may have the same (or at least similar) queries that they would like answered, and who may not be, for lack of a better word, as adept at managing these sorts of things. But you've laid out your requests extremely well, and have obviously put a lot of thought to it - so that definitely helps, and makes me realize that I could have been probably a lot more ... technical, or focused, call it what you will, in my replies.

Now, to sum it all up - I think you have a good plan, overall, and tackling some things, like setting up the `\Users` tree on a separate drive during install versus after install, which gives it a lot better chance at being successful, and planning out your overall strategy on what you want sync'd to OD and what you don't. If you have any further questions, or think of something in else after reading all of this, feel free to ask - it's better to plan now than to scramble later to fix it lol.

HTH

johnlgalt said:

Hi, @Rangoon and welcome the Elven Forum (11F)!

I have some thoughts on what you're looking to do, as well as some comments, but it is a long post, and I wanted to go ahead and extend a quick welcome first.

Plenty of others here will also have insight to provide soon enough, too, so stay tuned!

Click to expand...

Thanks, glad to be here!

johnlgalt said:

Also, feel free to update your Computer profile with relevant info, as I have done - click the "My computers" link at the end of any of my posts

Click to expand...

I was going to, but since everything is on the verge of changing, I felt it may be more misleading than helpful. Once the dust settles, I'll do that. Basically, each computer (current and replacements-to-come) has at least three internal NVMe SSD's (even the laptops), so it won't be a problem to separate the OS from games and data. I just wasn't sure if my methods were antiquated and I needed to resign myself to piling more into the C: drive and just learning to cope lol.

But this gives me hope that I can set things up in a way that makes sense to me, and still have it be one of the "right" ways to do it.

I'm still digesting everything from your replies, so will come back with more later.

Thanks!

edit: grammar

A few further questions:

Is there a way to keep user accounts' folders/data hidden the other user accounts on that computer? And is that only possible between non-administrator accounts?

Is it problematic to move User folder trees to another drive *after* Windows has been setup/customized? And is it normal that, after moving the User tree off of C:, there is still the same User folder remaining in use on C:? On one of my current PCs, after moving my User tree, the old one remained, containing a couple dozen items. Some folders are in use (Desktop) while others seem to be unused duplicates. I always wondered if that had something to do with the timing, or not doing the move correctly.