If you, like me, were a teenager in the 2000s, I bet you remember the Windows XP login screen. My four siblings and I each had our own accounts, designated by usernames and clip art images. Once I logged in, the computer felt like mine: it worked exactly as I set it up, and all my school documents were there. When my siblings needed the machine, they logged into their account where their stuff was. It worked then, and it can work now.

And yet most people, including myself, forget that this feature still exists. A friend of mine recently bought a new laptop to use outside the home. They shared a laptop with their partner to use when they were away from home. The breaking point: they were fed up with not being able to log into their own services on the shared device. I pointed out that they could have created separate user accounts. That idea hadn’t occurred to them yet.

A big part of this is that most people have their own computers at this point. But there are times when it makes sense to share a computer. Maybe you and your partner use desktop computers at home but share a laptop. Maybe there’s a single gaming computer in your house that multiple people use. Or maybe you’re traveling with someone and don’t want to bring multiple computers. Whatever your reason for sharing your device, the experience is a lot better with multiple accounts.

Adding a new account to a computer isn’t difficult. In Windows 11, you can open the Settings app, click Accounts in the left sidebar, and then click Add account. From here, you can add either a Microsoft account or a local account.