Make Windows Vista Log On Automatically
If you are just running a home computer for gaming or something unimportant, you might not want to have to log in every single time you reboot your computer. There's an easy tweak that will let you autologin.
First, we'll need to get to the Advanced User Accounts Control Panel to get to this setting. I think there's a registry tweak as well, but that seems like too much work.
Type in control userpasswords2 into the start menu search box, hit enter, and you'll see this screen:
Uncheck the box that says "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer", and then hit Apply. You'll see a username and password box. Enter in the appropriate information here and hit OK:
The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. When he's not coming up with great how-to articles, he's probably writing at his personal blog. This article was written on 01/25/07 and tagged with: Windows Vista, Security
Very useful
Thanks a lot
Thanks for this.
However, it doesn't seem to work when you hibernate. You still have to log on. Any workaround for that?
Hi!
For hibernate/sleep; go to advanced settings for power saving schema, ther you can set that logon isn't nessesary after sleep.
I found this in the help as well, but how do you do the reverse? Automatic logon seems to have been turned on on my machine since I installed Vista (on a new machine). I would prefer it be off since two of us use it and it would be helpful to have the so-called welcome screen to choose the user. The box to require a password is already unchecked (we don't need that in our home). I can get no further dialog boxes giving me the option to turn on the welcome screen with user choice. The machine always starts as the user that was first created.
Thanks in advance.
Fantastic article, you can also get to it by typing "control userpasswords2″ from the run box.
Is there something similiar for XP?
same as above is true for xp
It doesn't work for me !!
The screen "User accounts" does not have a box to be ticked "users must enter username and password to use this computer" ! I can't find it anywhere!
Can you help?
I had the same problem, but I ended up using regedit to get the box visible, then selected the correct account to login through 'control useraccounts2′. Restarted and works great
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Modify the 'AutoAdminLogin' value to '1′ to enable the checkbox.
The only other thing I needed was to change 'DefaultDomainName' AFTER I had set a user to auto login through 'control useraccounts2′ since I had a local user and a domain user with the same name.
BTW, I don't take responsibility if you foobar your PC, so use at your own risk.
You ought to change your instruction to send your advisee to start, run, then control…… I found the search didn't find the program in index, but using run worked fine.