When windows XP is not joined to a domain, it displays a welcome screen when it first boots:
The welcome screen displays all of the local users on the system, except the built-in administrator account that was created during setup. If we want to hide a specific user from the list, we need to create a special value under this registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList
Under this key you simply create a new DWORD value - the name matches the users name exactly, and the value is one of the following (Decimal format)
0 - Hides the user just from the welcome screen
1 - The user is shown
Before you start putting values in this key, I want to warn you. This tip is particularly dangerous. If you make the wrong move, you could make it nearly impossible to get back into your system. Don't blame me if you hose your system!
To disable the users I want, I browse to the registry key on my system:
Now I want to hide all of the accounts except Jennifer, so I add each of the accounts shown on the welcome screen, and give them a value of zero.
that's all we need to do. I log off, and now I only see Jennifer's account:
Here's the big question. How do you log on as a hidden user? If you are running windows XP Professional you simply need to press CTRL-ALT-DEL twice, and the standard logon screen will be displayed. This has one pitfall - it will fail to work if a user is still currently logged in. If you are having trouble getting it to show, then reboot and press it twice before any users have logged in. Secondly, if you are running Windows XP Home, you will need to boot in safe mode to use the hidden account. The CTRL-ALT-DEL trick does not work for XP Home.
Now here is the cool part. We have made a program that will do this for you. No need to mess around in the registry!
The program, while easier, does not exclude you from the danger I spoke of before. Please think about what you are doing before you remove a user from the list!
Just download it from here
As always we do not have any spyware, or adware in our freeware, and just like most of our freeware this program will run fine from a floppy, CD-Rom, or USB flash drive...no installation needed.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, September 13, 2006
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