GUIDE: How To Enable Interactive Logon Screen for Vista Home Basic & Premium

[stewie]

How To Enable Interactive Logon Screen for Vista Home Basic & Premium
by stewie

In Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise, normally you just have to use secpol.msc (Local Security Policy) in Administrative Tools to enable this setting. However, secpol.msc isn't included with Home Basic and Home Premium, but we can still enable it through the registry.

What is interactive logon?

In Vista, it's the logon screen where you must enter a user name and password to logon. In XP, it's two separate settings for interactive logon and don't display the last user name. But with Vista, when you activate don't display the last user name, the interactive logon will also be enabled.

What are the benefits of using interactive logon?

With interactive logon, no user account is visible on the logon screen. If an unauthorized user tries to use the computer, he or she will have to guess the user name as well. Another reason to use interactive logon could be that maybe you have some user accounts that you don't want people to see.

Enable Interactive Logon

Instructions:

1. Start -> type regedit in the search box and hit Enter
   
   
2. Browse to the following key:
   

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

3. On the right panel, locate the key dontdisplaylastusername
   
   
4. Double-click on it and change the value to: 1
   
   
5. Now when you log off or restart, you will see the following screen:
   
   
   (click to enlarge)

Optional: Enable Ctrl+Alt+Delete

This is purely optional, and it can be enabled with or without interactive logon.

For added security, you can require users to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete before logging on. This guarantees that the authentic Windows logon prompt appears, protecting the system from programs that mimic a logon to retrieve password information.

Instructions:

1. Start -> type netplwiz in the search box and hit Enter
   
   
2. Click on the Advanced tab and check the box Require users to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete
   
   
   (click to enlarge)
   
   
3. Click OK
   
   
4. Now when you log off or restart, you will see the following screen:
   
   
   (click to enlarge)

[vinumsv]

WoW !! Nice Guide Mate

+rep

[nic.]

Omg thanks for this tip!

[atbnet]

Good guide. I guess I take this feature for granted since I already have it available to me.

[crash]

Nice guide, but since I'm the only one that uses this computer, I have no need for this

[nic.]

Its more like a security feature IMO, doesn't matter how many people are using it. Instead of guessing your PW, they need to guess your ID all together.

[surfguy17]

cool i have a fingerprint reader in der newho so im safe

[crash]

Its more like a security feature IMO, doesn't matter how many people are using it. Instead of guessing your PW, they need to guess your ID all together.

I understand, but I'm not going to type my user name in 100s of times in the off chance that somebody will try to hack in to my computer by guessing my login user/password; that's why I created a strong login password. Besides, my user name is so simple to guess, it's practically a freebee anyways

[nic.]

TBO, I don't even have a PW for my PC.

Cheers.