How can I add the Administrator's account to the Welcome Screen in Windows XP?
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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).
This is what you normally get when you only have the Administrator's account:
This is what you get if you have more than the Administrator's account:
This is what you want to get:
To add the administrator's account to the welcome screen in Windows XP:
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Open Registry Editor.
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In Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE'SOFTWARE'Microsoft'Windows NT'CurrentVersion'Winlogon'SpecialAccounts'UserList |
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Create the following entry:
Administrator: REG_DWORD
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Assign a value of 1.
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Close Registry Editor.
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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!
