Hack 7 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 box prior
to logon that contains any text you want to display. (The text
doesn't have to be a legal notice, but this value is
often used for that purpose.) The box has a title and text. The
LegalNoticeCaption value will be the dialog
box's title.
- LegalNoticeText
-
This String value, used in concert with
LegalNoticeCaption, contains the text that you
want to be displayed inside a dialog box displayed prior to logon.
- PasswordExpiryWarning
-
This DWORD value lets you display a warning
message to users a certain number of days before their passwords are
set to expire. It lets you determine how many days ahead of time the
warning should be issued. To edit the value, click on the decimal
button and enter the number of days.
- ShutdownWithoutLogon
-
This String value enables or disables a button on
the XP logon dialog box that lets the system be shutdown. A value of
1 enables the button (so that it is shown); a
value of 0 disables the button (so that it is not
shown).
- Shell
-
This String value really doesn't
have to do with logons, but it's one you should know
about. It determines the shell—the user interface—that
will be used by XP. The default is Explorer.exe,
but it can be another shell as well—for example, the Program
Manager from older Windows versions. Type in the name of the
program—for example, Progman.exe for Program
Manager, or Taskman.exe for the Task Manager.
- AutoRestartShell
-
This DWORD value doesn't have to
do with logons either, but it's another good one to
know. It sets whether to automatically restart the Windows shell if
the shell crashes. A value of 1 automatically
restarts the shell. A value of 0 tells XP not to
restart the shell, forcing you to log off and then back on again to
restart it.
Now that the Startup and Shutdown are under control,
let's move on to the user interface, in
Chapter 2.
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