Configure Auto Logon
Windows Server 2008 to Workstation Manual
1. In the Start menu click Run and enter control userpasswords2. After clicking OK the User Accounts window will show up.
2. Next click the account you want to login automatically and uncheck Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer checkbox. If you now click Apply it will ask for the password of the user you selected. Enter the password of the selected user twice and click OK. From now on every time you start Windows it will automatically login!
June 15th, 2008 at 22:50
The user I wanted to auto-logon as didn’t have a password, this reg hack worked instead:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DefaultUserName String %USERNAME&
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DefaultPassword String %PASSWORD% or blank
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\AutoAdminLogon DWORD 1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324737
June 21st, 2008 at 18:40
Hello, is there a way to ‘hide’ Administrator from the login screen?
Administrator is always in focus upon boot and I have to click on my name to login as me.. if I hide Administrator, I can just hit ‘enter’ and enter my password..
Thx
Admin: See this topic at the forum how to hide users from the login screen!
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:55
Wow.. thanks Admin!
Admin: You ‘re welcome!
August 13th, 2008 at 12:10
Guys look at Logonexpert tool for windows 2008 autologon it saves password encrypted
September 12th, 2008 at 22:58
logonexpert is nice
October 18th, 2008 at 8:07
When my computer is idling it goes to the Windows Logon screen and shows the current user as “locked” and my downloads are basically stopped along with other ongoing work. How to I make it stay logged into the user?
Arris: Probably that’s the screensaver that is being activated after X minutes and if you press any key the logon screen will be displayed. You can disable this behavior by right clicking your desktop -> Personalize -> Screen Saver -> Uncheck “On resume, display logon screen”. It’s still weird that downloads stop because of this…
October 25th, 2008 at 19:43
I only see username and password boxes on the welcome screen. How do I show the user list selection?
- I have admin and non-admin users
- I disabled “Do not show last logged on user name” in group policy
Arris: If I add some users using the Create a new User Account page, I get a logon screen like this. Don’t know what your logonscreen is different from this one?
November 21st, 2008 at 0:34
I have the same problem as in the previous post.
I think it is caused by this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947708/en-us
January 25th, 2009 at 13:39
Hi,
I have now auto login on my user. the user is not administrator, so when i want to shut down the pc i could switch user og logut, how could i shut down the PC instead
Thanks for a fantastic guide/tool
Arris: Read step 5 of the Create a new User Account page to give non-Admin accounts permissions to shutdown. Thanks for the compliments!
April 9th, 2009 at 20:37
Note that if you hide all your administrators group accounts from the welcome screen, you will not be able to log in as any of those users, and elevating privelages via UAC does not work either.
Someone did mention in the forum that “runas.exe” at the cmd prompt will allow one to enter administrator credentials to elevate – but I have not tested it, as I reinstalled before I found that information.
Perhaps a warning is in order, for this step to alert users to this issue.
April 14th, 2009 at 21:04
works fine for Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta. Thank you!
June 4th, 2009 at 3:15
Ahh, the issue #10 talks about just happened to me! I did the “remove administrator from login” instructions in post #2, and now I’m logged into my normal user account, and UAC prevents from doing ANYTHING–including changing the registry back to allow me to see the administrator at the login screen. And since there’s no administrator there, I can’t log into the administrator account at all to fix the problem either!
Feeling really stupid after spending 8 hours setting up windows server today, any help would be MUCH appreciated!
June 4th, 2009 at 3:53
Nevermind!–Figured it out thanks to arrocharGeek! You are absolutely correct and my savior haha.
Went to cmd prompt, and used the runas command to launch regedit in the administrator environment and then deleted the DWORD value from there!
In case anyone else has this problem. Launch command prompt from the start menu. Go to your system32 folder (C:\Windows\System32) and type “runas \env \user:administrator ‘regedit.exe’” , that way you have full permissions in the Registry Editor and can do what you need to!