Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Using Multiple Dropbox Accounts For One Windows User Account

Dropbox is great but it laks the ability to run multiple Dropbox accounts for one windows account.
Me and my gilfriend share the same computer and the same windows account because it doesn't make sense for us to switch it constantly.

Here a step to step tutorial to fix the problem for windows 7.

Step 1:
Create a new user account (Barney).
This user must be password enabled!

Step 2:
Log into the account and install Dropbox.

The Dropbox installation goes to following default folder:
c:\Users\Barney\AppData\Roaming\Dropbox\

Place the Dropbox folder for your documents and files into one that is accessible to your primary windows user account like:
c:\Barney\Dropbox

Step 3:
Log into the main account.
Create a batch file with following content:

 runas /user:Barney /savecred C:\Users\Barney\AppData\Roaming\Dropbox\bin\Dropbox.exe  

If you start it, the password from the Barney account is promted.
The option /savecred means that your password will be saved and you won't get asked again.

You can start both Dropbox installation in parallel.


If you heard about the security problem from the 2011-06-20 where you could log into every account with no password for a periode of 4 hours you should secure your important files.
Fortunately I found BoxCrypt that does the job for me.

happy sharing