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Okay, let's say I have a network called "myNetwork" and on this network three computers, all of which run Windows 7 Home. One has my user account on it (lets call it "user1") and the PC's name is "foo". I want to log into my account on "foo" on one of the other two computers on the network ("bar"). If possible, I want to do something like foo\user1 on the login screen (. Is there a way to do this? If not, is there an alternate solution?

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  • Sure, check here for a starting point potentially assuming you are no in a domain environment with AD: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff629367.aspx
    – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style
    Commented Sep 8, 2017 at 13:08
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    Specify what kind of login do you have in mind - microsoft remote desktop? file share? third party remote viewing solutions, like vnc, teamviewer or anydesk? and also do you have windows 7 home or pro / ultimate?
    – Kitet
    Commented Sep 8, 2017 at 13:32

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This is not possible. Under Windows Home, user accounts are local to the individual machine, and have no context on another machine. The closest you could come would be to define identical accounts and passwords on all three machines, eg 'User1' on foo and bar. The problem is that account may look the same, but they are in reality entirely different and distinct accounts on each machine.

You can share a resource from one machine, and control access to it via accounts on that machine, and then connect to it from a different machine by specifying the credentials on the machine hosting the resource, but that's still not what you're looking for. That's exactly what the Pro series of Windows OS's is intended to provide.

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  • Home doesn't participate in Active Directory, so the notion of an individual box having an SPN is a bit of a non-starter. What I think you're remembering is the idea of "passthrough" connectivity on older versions of Windows, likely XP or earlier, where you shared a resource, protected it with an account defined identically to that on another machine, then passed that credential through to create the illusion of a single authentication, even though it was really wasn't.
    – David W
    Commented Sep 8, 2017 at 19:13
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As David said, the accounts are local only to the computer itself. The way companies and schools are able to have users log in to any workstation and access the appropriate files is using Active Directory.

One solution I recommend if you're looking to access files and programs local to a different machine than you're using is VNC. It is very easy to install a VNC server on the computer you want to log in to and install a viewer on the machine you're using. On a local network there should be no additional setup. You can then "remote" in to the computer you want to use and log in as the user on that computer.

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ctrl-alt-del at the login screen will give a machine\user logon experience.

To default to the machine\user logon experience, see a discussion on answers.microsoft.com. There are two versions of the same solution at the bottom of the comments

  • HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\DomainStyleLogon
  • HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.DEFAULT
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  • @Ramhound Can you help me understand your comment? I added my comment as an answer because I did not have the rep on this site to comment.
    – stevlars
    Commented Sep 8, 2017 at 19:29
  • Thanks @Ramhound. I agree this should be a comment. I did not realize comment vs answer was more important than moving the discussion along (there was no answer visible when I saw the question). I will keep that in mind in this forum.
    – stevlars
    Commented Sep 8, 2017 at 19:46
  • @Ramhound David understood the question differently and was accepted as the answer. Any improvements to my comment would be moot due to my different interpretation of what the OP was asking for. I can try to delete my comment.
    – stevlars
    Commented Sep 8, 2017 at 20:08
  • When the quality of this answer is improved, I will be given the ability, to reverse my vote. You can choose to take advantage of that fact or abandon the answer, its entirely up to you.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 8, 2017 at 20:12
  • @Ramhound I can edit the comment into more of an answer given the assumption that the OP is looking for a machine\user logon experience if you would be willing to provide feedback.
    – stevlars
    Commented Sep 8, 2017 at 20:19

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