One PC, two people

[TheLitsune]

Okay so me and my wife are using the same PC and we both stream on twitch. We both like using the same program for streaming. The main problem with streaming programs is if you make changes it impacts every other profile. This gets compounded further as when you make changes on the PC itself sometimes it’ll carry over those changes to every other person on the system which can break setups. IE: changing defaults for microphones/sound outputs, input pass through, etc.

We are about to upgrade to a new PC and go to windows 11 pro and finally have separate user accounts. Is there any possible way to isolate the same program between user accounts without downloading a sandboxing program? What about isolating system changes between accounts? Like if she changes the default sound output to headphones is there a way to keep it as speakers on mine? Note, we have not been using separate user accounts up to this point but I’m wanting to know what limitations we may have before I go changing settings and breaking her setup or vice versa. Thanks!

 

[koala]

If you use separate user accounts, which is absolutely recommended if multiple persons use the same computer, all settings are isolated automatically. All user specific files are saved below c:\users\<userid> since Windows Vista, and program configuration is saved in c:\users\<userid>\appdata. The directory c:\users\<userid> is called the user profile.
On a well organized Windows system (i. e. you didn't manually tamper with permissions), user accounts are perfectly separated. You are never affected by other user's changes. You cannot see other users even exist, it always looks as if you are the only user on the system.

Each user has its own set of configuration files. No user is able to access files inside other user's profiles. If you need to share files between users, you need to create a directory outside of the user profle, for example something like c:\data, and organize shared files in a directory structure within that.

The only global files are program installations. All the *.exe files. If you install one desktop app on the computer, the app becomes available for every user on that PC, but the configuration of that app is kept separate for every user, so every user thinks he is the only user on the system.

This is not OBS specific. This applies to every app and even to most Windows settings. If you create a new user account on a Windows system and log in to that account for the first time, it looks as if you log in to a freshly installed pristine Windows system.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

And though the User profile folder changed location (I don't recall when, Vista or 7 makes sense) but User Profile separation was in place back in the NT days mid '90s (For sure with NT 3.5, presumably even earlier/all NT versions, but I didn't work on earlier versions)

The challenge is that some changes are System level, not user profile, driven. Like adding a microphone. But a given audio devices sound level and whether Muted or not should be User Profile specific

Now, to follow up on what kaola wrote
- the next step is that shared storage space. A personal preference of mine, to make OS rebuilds, re-installs, User data backups, etc easier is to never add anything to Root of System drive [C:\]. But that may be more OCD than anything. I always have D:\ for data [either a partition or a 2nd Drive ].. again ,, just me.. use what works for you.
One a recent House of Worship build, I used the User Profile \Public\Documents for shared OBS content. Then I put a Shortcut in the All Users Desktop to point to that Shared Folder for easy access

- Then there is OBS itself
The challenge to the Original Poster is that OBS is NOT User Profile aware [a number of discussions in this forum on that topic. My take, not enough justification [demand] for complexity that would come with adjusting OBS to have this. And easy enough work arounds for those who understand User Profile, NT permissions, etc.

- So, if you log in with separate OS User Accounts/Profile, and are ok with recognizing need to start OBS and select appropriate profile. I suppose you could modify OBS shortcut to include command line option to select OBS Profile?? [maybe, I haven't tried]​

- There is also OBS portable, but I'd not go there if you don't have to [personally, I'd only investigate this is the above doesn't work.. again, just me.. ymmv]​

Finally, I'd avoid Win11 unless you have a driving reason to use that specific version at the moment. Win11 is not fully baked. Hopefully it won't be a repeat of Windows ME, Vista, & 8. Personally I use Pro [or Enterprise], but Pro isn't required for any of this. Win10 Home would be fine and has same ability (if you look for it) to set up separate local user accounts

 

[DayGeckoArt]

Windows 11 drove me crazy for the 3 days I tried it. The forced taskbar combining is the worst feature. Also no seconds on the clock allowed even with the old registry edit trick.

One alternative is for one of you to use another program like Streamlabs. I have SL set up with options I don't want messing up my OBS

 

[asiedentopf]

Thanks for the detailed explanation where OBS stores it's files.

I work at a college where one of my media services technicians is using OBS to allow Zoom to use 2 cameras at once in a Zoom meeting require this single Zoom user 2 camera to appear in one Zoom window. He got that working great, but this computer is used by multiple people in the department and this configuration needs to be the same for all users. We don't want to get a call every time someone logs in and have to make these custom configurations for each user. How can we capture the final configuration we like, place it in location like in the PUBLIC user profile so every instance of OBS gets the same configuration.

I hope that make sense, this is not my forte. I work in IT not Media.

Thanks,

Andre'

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Andre, one approach would be to use NTFS folder redirection combined with some permissions edits. Anyone in IT who deals with Citrix and/or Horizon (or pretty much any of those shared user VDI type environments), would be familiar with this sort of setup for Applications meant for single user, but to be used in a shared environment. Many of the same techniques could be applied [very typical desktop engineering]

This could be an after the fact sort of script (ie, hey user, if using OBS on this PC for first time, run this script ; OR adjust the Default User profile, or other tool to handle
Beware: OBS will be blissfully unaware of any of this. And any user can screw up the OBS settings (unintentionally or otherwise) so be sure to save off a clean settings file to restore if need be.