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To force a Windows XP or Windows 2000 pc to Automatically logon as a user and prevent the user from logging off, you need to do the following.

First prevent the user from being able to logoff the Windows XP or Windows 2000 PC. The user will be able to reboot, shutdown, or select stand by and hibernate.

1. On a remote PC, go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> right click on “Command Prompt” and select Run AS

2. Enter the administrator account and passwrod that has administrator rights to the remote pc and click OK

3. In the console (some call it the DOS window), type mmc.exe and hit <enter>

4. In the MMC, at the top click on File -> Add/Remove snap-in

5. Scroll down to Group Policy Object Editor

6. Click Add

7. Click on Browse

8. Select the Computers tab

9. Select the option “another computer’”

10. Type: [remote pc name]

11. Click OK and then click Finish

12. click close and the click OK

13. You should be at the Console Root of mmc.exe

14. Now Browse to: User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> CTRL+ALT+Del Options

15. Change “Remove Logoff” to enabled
    If you need to revert the changes so the user can logoff like in scenario when one needs to support the pc remotely, set this to NOT CONFIGURED and reboot the pc.

16. Reboot the remote pc.

17. When you logon to hte remote pc locally, you will notice that you can not logoff, even if you press CTR+ALT+DEL

Now that you removed the ability to log off the PC, you now need to setup the Windows XP or Windows 2000 pc to automatically logon.

1. Do a RUN AS to launch Regedit and use your administrator credentials credentials

2. Within Regedit, click File and select connect Network Registry

3. type in the remote pc name. click on OK

4. on the remote pc browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

5. Double click on DefaultUserName  (this is the login name)

6. Double click on DefaultPassword (this is where the  password is stored)

7. Double click on DefaultDomainName (this is where the  PC or domain name is stored)

8. Double click on AutoAdminLogon and change to 1 to a 0 (zero)
   0: means no autologon
   1: means autologon

 Reboot the PC the Windows XP, or Windows 2000 pc again. The Pc should automatically logon to the pc.

The user will not be able to logoff preventting someone from over writting the credentials that you put in the registry.

Keep in mind that the password that you put in the registry will not be encrypted but be stored in clear text.

So anyone that has rigths to view the remote pc’s registry will be able to see the user logon ID, password and domain

that you are loging into the pc with.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Microsoft Windows XP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.