Share Users Across Multiple Subdomain Installs

[Kyan]

Hello,

I've seen similar posts regarding this topic but I found the explanations to be incomplete, or at least difficult to understand and so my efforts have produced zero results.

I have 3 installs under the same domain. Each install uses different categories, extra fields and templates. I would like for a customer to be able to register on 1 install and be able to log into all 3. They do not need to remain logged in from one site to the other, just be able to login without having to register 3 separate times. I don't know which would be better, to have all 3 installs share the same database and then change the template and hide the categories for each install or if it would be better to have 3 databases that pull from the user tables of one database.

I'm hoping someone might be able to advise me on which option would be more suitable and offer up an explanation of how to set this up in as detailed/dumbed down a way as possible.

[Eric Barnes]

I would think it would be better to have three installs and just share the users table. If I get some spare time I will see if I can put together a tutorial.

[Kyan]

Thank you Eric. That would be great.