Automatic logon confusion (KB 312394)

[Ken Varn]

I am a developer on a system that uses the autologon feature. I have used
the encrypted answer file to register an auto-logon that is scrambled every
time the system is re-booted. This worked fine under Windows 2000, but now
that we have upgraded to Windows XP, it no longer works. I encountered the
knowledge base article 312394 and it explains that this was changed in XP by
design to no longer allow this feature.

Could someone explain why this was disabled in XP? I would prefer to use
the encrypted answer file for autologon passwords, but now it looks like my
application will have to write the password in clear text into the
DefaultPassword registry entry. This seems like a step backwards. I would
prefer to have my application scramble the auto-logon password and store it
using the encrypted answer file.

The article 312394 is confusing and does not explain the reasoning behind
this change nor how to workaround the change. Can someone please assist?


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Ken Varn
Senior Software Engineer
Diebold Inc.

EmailID = varnk
Domain = Diebold.com
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[Richard Harris]

Speak to Microsoft about it as they are the ones that built the software!

Rich