How can I
add the Administrator's account to the
Welcome Screen in Windows XP?
Windows XP
uses that idiot proof welcome screen
where all one has to do is click the
stupid icon of a user and wham! He's
logged on.
Not only
does the welcome screen hog resources,
but it's bound to another XP feature -
the Fast User Switching method.
I
recommend you disable both. Read the
following articles if you can't figure
out how to do it yourself:
By the
way, in a domain environment both
features are disabled and cannot be
re-enabled until you leave the domain
and re-join a workgroup.
Another
problem of this idiotic feature is the
fact that the Administrator's user
account does not display as a logon
option when you start Windows XP, this
is if you have more than the default
users (Administrator, Guest and the
hidden Remote Assistance disabled user).
To add the
administrator's account to the welcome
screen in Windows XP:
-
Open
Registry Editor.
-
In
Registry Editor, navigate to the
following registry key:
-
Create
the following entry:
Administrator: REG_DWORD
-
Assign
a value of 1.
-
Close
Registry Editor.
-
Reboot.
Note:
I've received reports that this trick
does not work for Windows XP Home
Edition. To work around that you'll need
to boot in safe mode and log on as
Administrator.
Doug Knox
wrote a great tool (like many of his
scripts and tools) that can
enable/disable the administrator's
account in the Welcome Screen. Download
the file from HERE (zipped, 11kb) and
run it.
Reader
Note: Oleg from Israel wrote this
cool add-on:
Once
you have created regular user
accounts, the default Administrator
account vanishes from the Welcome
screen, which you see when the
computer starts up. Press
Ctrl-Alt-Delete twice at the Welcome
screen to retrieve the standard
logon dialog. You can log on as
Administrator from here.
This
little trick to my opinion is much
more convenient and faster then
dealing with registry editing.
Thanks! |