Logon / Welcome Screen

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Guest

I'm trying to disable the 'click your username' aspect of the Welcome screen.
I want there to be a Username and Password box, instead of having a selection
of users. I've had it like this with a Domain set-up in Vista, but I'm not on
a domain with this PC.

I've looked in Help and found that 'the welcome screen cannot be disabled,'
however, I think I should be able to do this with it still on. I've tried
hiding Fast User Switching and forcing Classic Logon with Group Policy/Local
Security Policy, but I still see a list of accounts.

Thanks in advance for any tips.
 
Since you obviously have a version of Vista with a group policy editor all
you need to do is to enable one more policy. Look under Windows Settings |
Secutiy Settings | Local Policies | Security Options for the policy entitled
"Interactive logon: Do not display last user name".

As for me, on my non-domain-joined Vista boxes, I finally just gave in and
started using the welcome screen. I'm trying hard to embrace the new way of
doing things. It irks me a little, but I'll probably get used to it
eventually.
 
We want the Welcome screen with the multiple icons. How do we get it back?
Qur situation...

We have a single Vista machine, with multiple users accounts, in a domain.
Currently, at machine startup, the user is presented with Ctrl-Alt-Del, which
then takes the user to a username/password screen. Due to the domain
configuration, each user has to type in "domain"\username (for the username)
and her/his password to log into their personalized desktop. How does one
configure Vista to show this Welcome screen (@ computer startup) with the
multiple icons? From there, each user would be able simply click her/his
name, leading to the entering of that user's password?
 
Well, are you a domain admin? Domain policies override local policies, so you
want to make the change on a DC, and the wording of the policies would be a
bit different from one version of Windows server to another -- assuming this
is an active directory domain. I'm also not quite sure whether or not other
combinations of policies than the normal ones might yield the same result as
you are seeing. But, at its simplest in a non-domain joined system, in the
local policy editor on the computer you'd have to set "Interactive Logon: Do
not display last user name" to disabled, and you'd have to set "Interactive
Logon: Do not require Ctrl+Alt+Del" to Enabled.

I hope I'm not forgetting something. I've got one heck of a migraine today.
 
Yes, I'm the domain admin, and this is our first Vista machine. Before we set
up the computer in the domain, the welcome screen was exacty the way we
wanted it. There was an icon for each user, created by the machine's admin.
I'll try your suggestions. Hope the headache has subsided.
 
Hi. Wow! I must have been out of it yesterday. I'm sorry I rambled when I
wrote that message.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the default behavior for Windows
systems on your domain is, obviously, to use the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog for
logon. If you wish the behavior of ONLY the Vista machine to be different
from that of the other systems you'll want to put it in a separate group and
apply the policy changes to that group alone.

I've got some test systems running Vista at work, and they are in their own
separate group, but would still prefer that they use the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog.
Is there some specific reason, other than aesthetics, that you wish to show
the users at this workstation a list of user names? Are you planning on
turning off FUS? So far I've only been interested in testing these Vista
systems to see how standardized they can be made to be, behavior-wise,
without compromising security functions. So I'm leaving Ctrl+Alt+Del in place
but turning off FUS, because it seems like a BAD idea to have implemented on
a domain-connected system -- especially considering the distracted group of
end users who may be using it.

;-)

I hope you'll post back here and let us know how it goes.
 
Why the 'need' for icons at the Welcome screen... I think it will be more
difficult for some to remember the syntax to use when typing their username
(name of domain\username). With icons, she/he would simply have to click on
the icon with her/his name and then input her/his password. Though I never
do, I'm going to assume each can remember her/his name better than 'name of
domain\username. ;oD

I would like to retain FUS, which make the icons on the Welcome screen even
more important. To maintain the chaos, and the possibility of mass system
errors, all user get 'standard users' access.

Thanks for you assistance.
 
Yeah, that makes sense. I hope this works out the way you want it to. The
thing is that, with past versions of Windows, you could make a change for
some of these behaviors directly in the registry or in a dialog somewhere,
and it wouldn't show up in the policy editor. Very annoying when trying to
figure out why you're seeing a certain behavior and can't see any reason for
it in the policies. That's one of a gazillion reasons why I hate giving local
admin or power user rights to any end user. It's not necessarily that they
don't know how to deal with the OS, it's just that they can make changes to a
system that make administration of it more complex for the people who have to
do that.

When I had a couple of engineers on my domain test the use of FUS the very
first day someone ignored a warning about live applications in another user's
profile and rebooted one of the test systems. (He had just popped over to the
workstation and wanted to see how fast it would reboot. Heh.) The live
application belonged to his boss, and had a couple hours of work on it that
had been left unsaved because the boss had been asked to talk with a manager.
There was a minor skirmish as a result.

Please let me know how this works out for you. You're going into a place
that I've avoided deliberately, and I'd like to know what you find.
 
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