Enable or Disable Fast User Switching in Windows 11

The built-in Fast User Switching feature in Windows allows multiple users to share the same computer without signing out the previous user session or closing their running apps and documents. This makes it possible to quickly switch between user accounts without having to close and reopen applications each time, wait for the user profile to load, or wait for logon policies and logon scripts to complete.

How to Switch Between User Accounts in Windows

In Windows 10 and Windows 11, there are several ways to switch between user accounts.

• From the Windows Start Menu: click Start -> select the current user account -> click on the three dots (...) button on the user’s account card. If there are any other active user sessions on the computer, they will be listed, and you will be able to switch to them. Or click the Switch User button to sign in with a different user account.
• You can also switch users via the Windows Lock screen. To lock the current session, press Win + L or run rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation command
• The Switch User button is available on the Windows Security screen, which you can open by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del
• Pressing Alt + F4 while on the desktop (all open apps must be minimized first) will open the Shut Down Windows dialog, which also provides an option to switch user.
• You can switch from the current session to the user selection screen by running the tsdiscon command. This built-in command disconnects the current session without terminating it. The tsdiscon command was originally designed for Windows Terminal Services / Remote Desktop Services (RDS) environments.

All of these methods allow you to switch Windows users without terminating other users’ sessions. A disconnected user can later return to their session and resume from the exact point at which they were disconnected. Right-clicking a user in this session list provides an additional option to switch between active user sessions.

Disabling Fast User Switching in Windows 11

In Windows, there is no way to completely disable the ability to create multiple local user sessions. However, an administrator can hide all the available fast user switching options in the Windows GUI via Group Policy.

1. Open the local Group Policy editor ( gpedit.msc )
2. Navigate to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Logon
3. Enable the GPO option Hide entry points for Fast User Switching.
4. Once the Group Policy settings have been updated on a computer, all the user interface options that enable users to switch between accounts in Windows will be hidden

This option can also be configured directly via the registry. Create the HideFastUserSwitching registry parameter and set it to 1, either manually or by running the command:

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" /v "HideFastUserSwitching" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

What happens when Fast User Switching is disabled?

• The list of other user accounts will be hidden from the Start menu.
• All user accounts except the current one will be hidden on the Windows lock screen.
• The Switch User button will be removed from the Windows Security screen, which is opened with Ctrl + Alt + Del.

Hiding the Fast User Switching interface forces users to sign out of their current session before signing in with another account. However, this doesn’t completely prevent users from switching between sessions. For example, the tsdiscon command can still be used to disconnect the current session and return to the Windows sign‑in screen with the list of users.