Hide a user on the logon screen?

[Guest]

Is there a way to hide a user account that appears on the logon screen? Of
course without classic logon, how would you get to it later? This seems like
Vista makes windows less secure by displaying the names all the time.

 

[Alexander Suhovey]

WXS,

Same trick as in Windows XP should work to remove certain account from
Welcome screen:

- Open elevated registry editor (regedit.exe)
- Navigate to
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList.
Note that his key may not exist yet on your Vista. On my Vista there was no
SpecialAccounts key under WInlogon so I have created it and also UserList
under it.
- Add DWORD value with the same name as account you want to hide. Do not
change value data, leave it default (which is zero)
- Press Win+L to lock workstation and click 'Switch User' button to check
that account in question does not show up in list anymore.

Here's a link to illustrated instructions for XP in case you have any
problems following list above:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2006/09/hide-user-accounts-from-windows-xp.html

 

[Guest]

Hi,
I have tried Alexander's suggestion. Yes the account is now hidden but I
cannot login into it as I could do via XP i.e by 2 x Ctrl/Alt/Del. No ther
account is logged in. I've treid the hidden user as both admin and user but
to no avail. Win/L also does not work.

Has anyone actually been able to hide the user from the logon\ welcome
screen and then still been able to log into it via the "Welcome Screen" with
Vista?

I'm using Vista Ultimate.

Thanks.

Pete

 

[Alexander Suhovey]

I don't think so, sorry. The way to login with particular account using
Welcome Screen is to have this user appear on the list.

Another way is to configure auto logon for this user, then it will be
automatically logged on upon reboot no matter if it is listed on the Welcome
Screen or not. But I'm not sure if that's what you want.

 

[Alexander Suhovey]

That's what I was saying, you can't. Since Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't bring up
classic logon menu, you can't log on using hidden account with Welcome
Screen.

 

[Alexander Suhovey]

There's still a rather geeky way to achieve what you want. In short you can
first log on with some account that is listed on Welcome Screen, then kill
the shell (explorer.exe process), then start it again under account you've
hidden from Welcome Screen using RUNAS command.

Let me know if you OK with this scenario and if you need additional
instructions.

 

[Alexander Suhovey]

Are you able to confirm that Microsoft left the ability to hide the
account
but then at the same time, left no ready way for say a hidden
administrator
to access the machine? I find that quite an odd position for Bill to take.
Seems wierd to have something "half pregnant" eh...

Well, AFAIK this feature was never supposed to be used to manually hide any
account that supposed to log on interactively. Otherwise it should have
entry points in accounts management UIs, right?

In XP It was used by the OS to hide system accounts like SUPPORT_XXX or
IUSR_MACHINENAME or ASP.NET meaning accounts nobody ever logs on
interactively so there's no reason for them to show up on Welcome Screen.
The only exception was an "Administrator" account that was hidden by the OS
from Welcome Screen when there was another active account that was a member
of Administrators group.

I don't know for sure if "CTRL+ALT+DEL twice" was put there only for this
specific scenario but it's quite possible. And since Administrator account
is disabled anyway and will stay disabled on most systems, it seems logical
to remove a feature that supports obsolete scenario.

I'm not defending that decision since I miss "CTRL+ALT+DEL twice" as much as
you do. I'm just saying that I can see the logic behind removing it.