Can I make fast user switching in Windows 7 show a list of users?

Question

Is there a way to "emulate" the fast user switching behaviour of Mac OS on Windows?

I'm already aware of the WIN+L shortcut, but is there a way to have Windows list the users and allowing one to switch to a user by simply clicking its icon?

Answer 1

If you'd like the XP-style behavior back, where Win+L goes to the Fast User Switching screen, you can emulate it with some creative use of Win 7's Task Scheduler.

Log into the account that needs this behavior, open Task Scheduler and create a new task. Make sure that Run only when user is logged on is selected under Security options. On the Triggers tab, create a new trigger for On workstation lock for the current user. On the Actions tab, add an action to run the program %SystemRoot%\System32\tsdiscon.exe. That's it!

AFAIK, because of the security boundaries between user accounts and sessions, the above is the only way to make this such that it works, and you have to create the task on every user account where you want this behavior to occur. I don't think it's possible to create a single system-wide task for all users.

Answer 2

It already does, on my computer. I can't take screenshots when at the login screen, otherwise I'd show you. I have three accounts - ZoFreX, Bob, and the guest account. If I lock the screen (Win+L) there is a button "Switch users" beneath the login prompt. If I click this, I see a list of the users on the system, and I can log in as them just by clicking (and typing in the password, if they have one). I can get directly to this screen by selecting "switch users" from the shutdown widget on the start menu.

I also found instructions on creating a shortcut to go directly to the switch users screen.