Fast user switching is logging users off instead of switching users

I have a netbook running Windows 8.1 Pro that will no longer allow more than one user to be logged in at the same time. The steps necessary to reproduce this are as follows:

The current user presses WIN to bring up the start screen.
The user clicks his name in the corner and a list of other users appears.
As soon as one of the other names is clicked, the user is unceremoniously logged off without any prompts.

This behavior seems to have started some time after upgrading to Windows 8.1 from Windows 8. Before that point, everything worked fine and more than one user could be logged in at the same time. I've tried searching for others experiencing similar problems but this appears to be unique.

System Details:

CPU: Intel Atom N455 @ 1.66 GHz
RAM: 1 GB
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro w/ Media Center 32-bit

Update: I tried the Alt+F4 trick, which produces this dialog:

enter image description here

However, the dialog box is lying. When the user switches back, all applications are closed.

Nathan Osman

Posted 2014-06-12T02:24:38.187

Reputation: 2 552

Related: Is there a hard limit to the number of users that can be logged on to a single Windows 7 workstation using Fast User Switching?. Even Windows 7 had a limit on active sessions.

– jww – 2014-06-21T11:37:56.287

They indeed changed the fast user switch. And the part of being unable to have two accounts logged on at the same time is true too. kinda sucks. – LisaW – 2014-06-15T15:18:49.517

Answers

Try checking both:

Use regedit to go to the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
Create a DWORD entry named HideFastUserSwitching and set its value to 0.
Type Group Policy in the Start Screen and then click on the Settings category. Click on the Edit Group Policy option and under the Local Computer Policy expand the tree to the following path:
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Logon.
Double-click on Hide entry points for Fast User Switching, select Not Configured and then click on OK. Then open the Run dialog box and enter the command gpupdate /force and click OK.

For both methods, try rebooting if they don't work at first. It would be interesting to know if the above settings existed already on your computer.