Admin Know-IT-All Question #7
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KIA round-up
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You're not out of the woods yet. Get back in the game and finish the rest of the quiz, cowpoke!
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Cathleen A. Gagne, Senior Editorial Director
Were you correct?
"All systems have been alerted to your presence sir."
- C3PO, Star Wars
Today's Know-IT-All answer is:
b. 'Hack' your own registry and create an auto logon key
Learn more:
Windows 2000 normally requires that any user who wants to log in at the local console must do so manually, usually by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del and typing a username and password. Some users want to have the luxury of having the system log them in automatically. While this is a risky maneuver -- it makes it much easier to defeat logon security, especially if the console isn't behind a locked door -- there is a relatively easy way to do it. Not only that, but there's also a way to only allow it for a certain number of logins before the conventional login behavior kicks back in.
You hack the Registry to create this effect. To create a simple auto-logon, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsNTCurrentVersionWinlogon and edit the 'DefaultUserName' entry. Type in the user name you wish to use. Edit the DefaultPassword key to contain your password; if the key doesn't exist, create it as a REG_SZ for the data type. Add a value, a REG_SZ named AutoAdminLogon, and set it to 1. On the next reboot, you should be logged in automatically.
If this quiz has left you yearning for more information, please check the links below for related articles and tips:
>> Serdar Yegulalp's full article entitled Log an administrator on automatically.
>> Read this article on locking a workstation vs. logging off.
>> Ever wondered about the differences between REGEDIT and REGEDT32?
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