Windows XP Hacks

Control User Logins by Hacking the Registry

Make better use of the XP login screen.

If there is more than one user account on your system, or if you’ve set up XP to require logins, you’ll have to log in to XP before you can begin to use it. But you needn’t stay with the default XP login rules; you can use a single Registry key to customize how you log in. For example, you can display custom text before login, and you can remind anyone with an account on the PC to change their password a certain number of days prior to the password’s expiration.

To control logon options, run the Registry Editor [Hack #68] and go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon subkey, which contains a variety of logon settings (as well as some settings not having to do directly with logons). Following are the most important values you can edit to customize logons.

DontDisplayLastUserName

This setting lets you control how the system logon dialog box is used. If this String value is present and set to 1, all users will have to enter both their username and password in order to log on. If the value is 0, the name of the last user to log on will be displayed in the system logon dialog box.

DefaultUserName

This String value contains the name of the last user who logged on. It will be displayed only if the DontDisplayLastUserName value is not present or is set to 0.

LegalNoticeCaption

This String value, used in concert with the LegalNoticeText value, displays a dialog ...