Whenever users who have not established an account on your system logsinto your system, they will become a new users to your system. When the user enters a name not in the current user file, PCBoard will ask to confirm if their name is correct. If the name is correct, the user will be logged in as a new user. First of all, the NEWUSER will be displayed (as defined in PCBSetup > File Locations > Display Files). This file usually contains an introduction to your system.

Once that information is displayed, the user is asked if they wish to register. If they choose to register, they will be asked to fill out some additional questions in order to become a registered user on the system.

PCBoard begins by asking for the following information:

• Password
• City/State
• Business/Data Phone
• Home/Voice Phone
• Brand of CPU
• Clear Screen Between Messages
• Default Protocol for File Transfers

The answers to these questions are stored in the user file record. The answer to the Brand of CPU question is stored in the Comment #1 field.

All of the above questions are records in the PCBTEXT and may be configured to ask any question you wish. However, the location of where the answers are written cannot be changed. If you want to disable some of the questions, blank out the appropriate record in your PCBTEXT file using MKPCBTXT.

There are two security levels whch come into play for new users to your system. The security level of the new user depends on if they choose to register or not. If you look at PCBSetup > Security Levels > User Levels you will see the following fields:

• Level Given to Users Who Agree to Register
• Level Given to Users Who Refuse to Register

You can specify the security level that users get when they agree or refuse to register. When a user agrees to register, a new record in the user file is created. However, when they refuse to register, no user record is created.

By default the security level given to users who refuse to register is 0.
This means that if the user refuses to register they will be immediately logged off of the system. You may want to change this value to another security if you wish to enable new users to look around the system without creating an account on your system.

If you have enabled subscription mode on your system, PCBoard will assign new users the value you have entered for the Default Subscription Length in PCBSetup | Subscription. If you have not enabled subscription mode, your new users will have an expirate date of 00-00-00 which means their accounts will never expire.

The Default Subscription Length is in days and you can enter any value up to 9999 in that field although something like 365 may be more reasonable.

If you do not wish to allow new users to your system, there are two ways you can accomplish this setup:

In PCBSetup > Configuration Options > System Control set the Run System as a Closed Board to Y. If you do not have a NEWASK questionnaire defined, when the user attempts to log in as a new user they will be shown the CLOSED file which explains that your system is a closed system.

If you do have a NEWASK questionnaire defined, the user will be allowed to continue and fill out the NEWASK questionnaire. However, no user account is created. You would want to use this type of system if you want to screen your new users and manually add them to the user file after they answer some questions.

Modify the security level entry that you assign to new users who agree to register. Set the time limit for that security level to 0. Any new user that attempts to call the system will be displayed the CLOSED file and promptly logged off. This will occur even if you do have a NEWASK questionnaire defined.