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I share a PC with other family members. We each have a user name and password. Sometimes when I install a program, it's available only to me. How do I make it available to everyone?

Visubalan Nandakumar, San Marcos, Texas

Any installed program is available to everyone. The problem is that the shortcuts to the programs aren't on everyone's Start menu. I'll tell you how to add the shortcuts, and I have some other application-sharing tips as well.

To make your applications available to everyone using the PC, open Windows Explorer and select your default Start Menu folder. If you're using Windows 98 or Me, it's probably C:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. In Windows 2000 or XP, the path is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs. Click the Windows Start button, select Programs ( All Programs in XP), and choose the program or submenu you want to add to everyone's Start menu. Right-click and drag the shortcut to the open Explorer window, and select Copy Here.

If you use Windows 2000 or XP, that's all you need to do. But with Windows 98 and Me, each user (other than yourself) must perform one more task. Select Start, Settings, Control Panel, double-click the Users icon, and choose his or her user name. Then click Change Settings and uncheck Start Menu in the Items box. Click OK and Close. Now choose Start, Log Off [your name], and log back on. Reopen the Personalized Items Settings dialog box, and this time check rather than uncheck the Start Menu option.

Why the silly routine? Windows creates a different Start Menu folder for each user, as well as a generic, all-user Start Menu. With Windows 98 and Me, the Start Menu option described above controls whether you see your own Start Menu or the generic one. (To be sure, you can get rid of this whole problem by having everyone unclick the option--but they'll also lose their personalized Start menus.) When a user's Start menu is turned on after being off, Windows copies everything from its generic Start menu to the person's own menu, making it a combination of what was in both menus.

So how do you install a new program in Windows 98 and Me so that everyone can access it? First, log off as yourself, and at the log-on dialog box, click Cancel. Windows will come up, but since you aren't logged on as a particular user, you'll see the default Start menu. Install the application, and follow the instructions above for copying the generic Start menu onto the personalized Start menu of each user.

With Windows 2000 and XP, installing an application for everyone must be done via an Administrator account. In fact, people without such accounts may not be able to install anything. Some programs automatically become available to all accounts on a multiuser PC when the administrator installs them, but others don't. The best applications will ask you as part of the installation process whether you want everyone to have access to them. If a program you want to share appears only on your Start menu, follow the instructions above to place a shortcut to it on the Start menus of other users.

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