Guest Access to Your Machine?

[VPUThomas]

Wondering how folks have set their dedicated cabinets up (with respect to Windows and accounts).  That is, how have you granted folks access to play, but deny them access to your personal/account stuff since Windows now insists on an MS account for installation?

When I originally set mine up it was with a fresh install of Windows 11 Pro and my MS account (now mandatory - outside of any loopholes that MS continually works towards closing).   The machine is running fine without issue to this day.  That said, in order for anyone to play, I have to fire up the beast and sign in with my actual MS user/pswd which means if I'm not around folks cannot play.   I want to be able to give them access to play, but zero access to my MS personal goodies (e.g. email etc.).  How have you folks dealt with this?  PS - suggesting I create a guest account and reinstall all pinball stuff again is not an option (though it is a lesson learned); far too much time and effort invested in tweaking and configuring to toss away... and creating a guest account without reinstalling doesn't account for the headache of file ownership/access, not to mention settings getting farked/reset.  Next go 'round I will create a secondary local account and reinstall, but that doesn't help right now.  

For the record, this machine is ONLY used for pinball.  I use a separate machine for my personal computing.

Worst case, is there some registry kludge that will prevent them from accessing MS account related stuff e.g. Onedrive, Hotmail (through browser) etc.?  
  
As always, thanks in advance.

Thomas

[Rappelbox]

If you're using Pinup System you can activate the "play only" Mode.

Without a keyboard people can't exit of Popper and that's what you basically want. They can use the VPin as intended but nothing else.
Done in 1-2 minutes incl. googling or following the setup:
https://www.nailbuster.com/wikipinup/doku.php?id=tips_tricks

[deadmanworking]

@VPUThomas it should still be possible to switch/convert your used main account on the machine to a local account which would remove all syncing and associations etc but keep the software setup unchanged, and you could also use it without password so it would be truly switch on and play. Numerous tutorials in the web.

[VPUThomas]

@deadmanwalking This isn't as problem-free as you'd think.  File ownership, registry settings, Windows permissions and such all conspire to give one grief, especially when one has everything heavily customized.

 

@rappelbox.  In theory,  an elegant solution, in practice, a gamble.  I've had popper kick me out to the desktop on more than one occasion. 
 

Thanks for the suggestions folks.   

Edited July 26, 2025 by VPUThomas