Windows 10: Add Guest Account in Windows 10

That worked fine

Thanks for your help.
.

 

Hi Shawn,
I would like to add to this thread, as I have a similar need to OldGrantonian.
I wish to add an account called "visitor" without a password on two PCs: a Windows 10 Pro desktop & a Windows 10 Home laptop. I followed option 1 and finished up with two different results. The new visitor account was created correctly on the Pro PC, but on the Home PC I have exactly the same situation as does OldGrantonian.
The output of "net user visitor" on both PCs is:

On Windows 10 Pro (version 1703 build 15063.608):

User name visitor
Full Name
Comment
User's comment
Country/region code 000 (System Default)
Account active Yes
Account expires Never

Password last set 4/10/17 20:24:43
Password expires 15/11/17 20:24:43
Password changeable 4/10/17 20:24:43
Password required Yes
User may change password Yes

Workstations allowed All
Logon script
User profile
Home directory
Last logon 4/10/17 20:28:49

Logon hours allowed All

Local Group Memberships *Guests *HomeUsers
Global Group memberships *None
The command completed successfully.

On Windows 10 Home (version 1703 build 15063.608):

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> net users visitor
User name visitor
Full Name
Comment
User's comment
Country/region code 000 (System Default)
Account active Yes
Account expires Never

Password last set 4/10/17 5:29:46 PM
Password expires 15/11/17 5:29:46 PM
Password changeable 4/10/17 5:29:46 PM
Password required Yes
User may change password Yes

Workstations allowed All
Logon script
User profile
Home directory
Last logon 4/10/17 6:47:16 PM

Logon hours allowed All

Local Group Memberships *Guests *HomeUsers
Global Group memberships *None
The command completed successfully.

Any thoughts on where do we go from here?

 

Great news. You're most welcome. *Smile

 

Hello Mike, *Smile

You could see if creating a local account as usual first will let you sign in to it.

If so, then you could also pick up at step 4 in Option 2 to convert it to a guest account.

 

Hi Shawn,
But isn't option 2 only available on Windows 10 Pro, Education & Enterprise? My problem is on a Windows 10 Home PC.

 

Sorry. You can pick up at step 3 in Option 1 to convert it instead if you are able to sign in to the new local account.

 

Still no joy with this. I created a local account, but could not sign in – I was logged out immediately just as previously. Output of the net command is:

PS C:\Users\Mike> net user visitor2
User name visitor2
Full Name
Comment
User's comment
Country/region code 000 (System Default)
Account active Yes
Account expires Never

Password last set 5/10/17 6:58:21 PM
Password expires Never
Password changeable 5/10/17 6:58:21 PM
Password required No
User may change password Yes

Workstations allowed All
Logon script
User profile
Home directory
Last logon 5/10/17 6:59:01 PM

Logon hours allowed All

Local Group Memberships *HomeUsers *Users
Global Group memberships *None
The command completed successfully.

I also created another local account, and then altered it by picking up at step 3 in option 1, even though I couldn’t sign in to it. The result was the same.

Any further thoughts? It seems rather odd that W10 Home allows me to create a local account but then won’t allow me to sign in to it.

 

Mike,

You should be able to at least add a new local account and be able to sign in to it.

If you like, you could try doing a repair install to see if you may be able to afterwards.

*Arrow Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade Installation Upgrade Tutorials

 

Hi Shawn,
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not interested in the hassle. I'll just accept that this is a limitation of W10 Home.

 

You should normally be able to create a Guest account in all editions of Windows 10.

 

Agreed. W10 Home did allow me to create the account, but it wouldn't allow me to log on to it.

 

I use a third option to create guest accounts in W10 Home, and this may hold the clue to being able to log in sucessfully. While lusrmgr.msc isn't available in Home, another utility that can manipulate group membership is - netplwiz.exe

Create a new standard user, then run netplwiz. In order to be able to select another user and change its properties you have to first tick 'Users must enter a password to use this computer'. Then you can select an account, click the Properties button, and on the Group Membership tab select Guests in 'Other'.

I've just tested this procedure. With 'users must enter a password...' still selected a newly-created guest account goes through the normal 'Preparing Windows...' screen before arriving at the Desktop. Once the guest account's profile has been successfully created you can turn off 'users must enter a password...' and still be able to log in to the guest account.

 

I used netplwiz as suggested by Bree, and created a new visitor account with password in the Guests group. Then I attempted to log in to it, and entered the password. It was accepted, but then I was immediately logged out just as previously. I used netplwiz again to remove the password, but it made no difference. I am back to square one.

 

Mike, *Smile

You might consider doing a repair install when you have time to see if it may fix this for you.

*Arrow Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade Installation Upgrade Tutorials

 

Does sound like it's something particular to your system. I'd try Brink's 'repair install' suggestion.