Talk:Multi-user software

Bogus external link deleted[edit]

I deleted the erides link do to pornografic content — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mateia (talk • contribs) 14:25, 11 August 2006‎ (UTC)[reply]

And, from the description of the link, it didn't look at all relevant to this page in any case. Guy Harris (talk) 18:18, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Multiuser vs. multisession[edit]

Some multi-user operating systems such as Windows versions from the Windows NT family support simultaneous access by multiple users... Isn't this called "multisession"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.197.74.39 (talk) 12:40, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That may be what some people call it, but, as it "allows access by multiple users of a computer", it qualifies as "multi-user" by the definition of "multi-user" on this page. As it notes, you can have multiple users logged into a computer running (later versions of) an NT-family OS using Remote Desktop Services. Yes, each user gets a session, but that's the case with most if not all multi-user OSes. Guy Harris (talk) 18:11, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Windows is not a true multi-user operating system[edit]

It never has been and it never will be, changes made by users in Windows operating systems often have wide ranging system wide effects. There is very little user space isolation in Windows. At best it could be described as a single user operating system with multiple sessions running on top of it. --101.162.1.52 (talk) 09:44, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably meaning changes made by ordinary users often have wide-ranging system-wide effects, even if the user only wants to modify their own session. (Changes made by the super-user on a UN*X system can easily have wide-ranging system-wide effects.) What are some examples of this? Guy Harris (talk) 10:05, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes correct, changes made to applications and setting in Windows by ordinary users can have system wide ranging system effects. Of course super users are different again. Unix based systems have user specific individual libraries, settings, apps and directories that effect a standard user, but are not system wide.

A part of the reason besides disk space usage as to why systems administrators lock down Windows systems and prevent standard users from installing apps is because of the fact that Windows does not manage libraries within its specific user space as a Unix system does, rather changes to libraries often occur in system wide directories such as C:/Windows/Sytem and C:/Windows/System32. Rather than the Unix alternative of /userspace/libraries and that's just one example --101.162.1.52 (talk) 10:11, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If there is no further discussion on the matter then I'm guessing the issue is resolved in Windows NOT being a multi-user OS and I'll do some tidying up? --124.186.241.51 (talk) 11:43, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think for an operating system to be multi-user it isn't enough to have usernames and passwords, owner-group-world permissions on files, or even the memory management and task scheduler to allow two arbitary programs started by different people concurrently on different screens... even DRDOS 7 allowed that; a multi-user system needs to allow two or more people to use the system at the same time essentially as if they have the machine to themselves, so (apart from going a bit slower and having less RAM for themselves) they all should be able to run all the normal programs. A system that allows one user to run any software (e.g. GUI-based) and other users to only be able to do command-line stuff or anything as restricted as that, is not normally considered a multi-user system (but a single-user system with some multi-tasking - or some lesser definition like that) Maitchy (talk) 07:50, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"A system that allows one user to run any software (e.g. GUI-based) and other users to only be able to do command-line stuff or anything as restricted as that, is not normally considered a multi-user system" Considered by whom? Citations? Guy Harris (talk) 09:13, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Software"[edit]

Is the title well-supported? Shouldn't this page be called "multi-user operating system"? DFlhb (talk) 17:01, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the article talks about operating systems. Only the

Management systems are implicitly designed to be used by multiple users, typically one system administrator or more and an end-user community.

paragraph appears to talk about anything else. Guy Harris (talk) 23:18, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Does that refer to things like the accounting software companies make employees log requests/receipts into? If so, then "multi-user software" seems like a fuzzy concept, which might encompass Google Docs or practically any website with a "login" box (unlike multi-user system, which has a pretty specific meaning). DFlhb (talk) 23:33, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That sentence, vague term "management systems" and all, was added by an anonymous user in an edit without an edit comment, so it could mean a lot of things. I'm not sure that it can be made sufficiently less vague as to make it meaningful. Maybe it's time to look for sources that use the term in a context other than OSes and perhaps even define them term in contexts other than OSes. Guy Harris (talk) 01:04, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]