Hide UserID from Welcome screen - ctrl alt delete twice

[Allen C.]

Hello,

I have to support a fair number of family based computers. With WindowsXP I
always kept an admin level account enabled and hidden on the machine. That
way, if they locked themselves out or whatever I could do the ctrl alt delete
twice at the Welcome screen, log in with the hidden administrative level
account and fix their problem. How does one go about doing this same thing
for Vista Home Premium and for Vista Ultimate?

BTW, I'm not asking to autologon the user, not asking that they have to
enter their user name and password (want to continue to use the Welcome
screen), or hide an admin id that can't be used without logging in as a
different user and then after editing the registry to unhide an account then
be able to log on with that account.

Thanks in advance.

S,
Allen

 

[Jeff Smith [MSFT]]

I know what you're talking about, and had the same setup myself back in the
day...

I'm not sure if the CADx2 trick still works in Vista. I certainly don't see
any obvious way to turn it back on.

You could always bring along a laptop and remote desktop into the other PC.
You still get to use the secret admin account on their box, plus you don't
have to touch their grubby keyboard.