Configuring Accounts to Autologon
Applies To: Windows 7
Ben wants to configure the public shared-access computers to automatically log on as ByaGuest each time they start. That way, corporate guests do not need an account or password to use the computer. To do this, he can configure the registry values shown in Table1. These values are located in the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Ben could use a manual process to configure these registry values on each shared computer. For example, Ben could export these values to a .reg file, and then import that .reg file in to the registry on each computer. However, because Ben’s shared computers are all joined to a domain, he will use Group Policy preferences to automatically configure these values on each shared computer. For more information about Group Policy preferences, see the section titled Using Group Policy Preferences.
| Value | Type | Setting |
|---|---|---|
AutoAdminLogon |
REG_SZ |
1 |
DefaultDomainName |
REG_SZ |
LITWARE |
DefaultUserName |
REG_SZ |
ByaGuest |
DefaultPassword |
REG_SZ |
Password |
Table 1 AutoLogon registry values
Note
The Windows Sysinternals Suite includes a tool named Autologon that you can use to configure computers to automatically log on to a specific account. The benefit of using this tool is that it encrypts the password, whereas the values shown in Table 1 in store the password in plain text. The Sysinternals Autologon tool supports only 32-bit versions of Windows 7, however.