roger abell [mvp]

The way to solve this is to have separate accounts.

jeff

To expand upon what Bob suggests... You should have two
accounts indeed. However, the constraint of wanting both
of you to run under the same account in order to share
favorites and other files suggests that your normal day-
to-day account should be one with low privilege (not
Administrator). You would then have a second account for
you and you alone which would allow you to install
software. Your administrative account will have
sufficient permissions to change the password of the day-
to-day shared user account.

I run XP Pro so I am not sure if XP Home also allows
RunAs or not but, if it does, you can launch applications
under higher privilege using that feature from within the
low privilege account.

Another approach on file sharing is to use the "Shared
Do***ents" folder instead of your individual My Do***ents
folders. This won't resolve the issue of sharing browser
favorites, but, it may be enough if you don't like the
first option.

The second aspect of this is to adjust the behavior of
your son. Sadly, I have no targeted advice on that
aspect. ;-)

jeff

Oops... I was actually expanding on Roger's suggestion--
Sorry Roger.

Yes, WinXP home can do run as.