Tuesday, March 24, 2009

How to hide a user account on the logon screen

Maybe you have created a user account on your XP computer you really don't want to see that account choice every time you log on to Windows, but you also don't want to just delete the account. Here's how to hide an account from the logon screen:
Before editing the registry, back it up just to be safe.
1. Open the registry editor and navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList
2. In the right pane, you'll see a list of items that correspond to the user accounts that exist on the computer but are not shown on the logon screen. You'll probably be surprised at how many there are.
3. Right click an empty space in the right pane, select NEW and DWORD value.
4. Right click the new value and rename it to the exact name of the user account you want to hide.
5. Close the registry editor.
Now the account name won't show up on the logon screen. You can unhide the account at any time by deleting the registry key you created. Your nephew can still log onto the account while it's hidden. Just press CTRL+ALT+DEL twice in a row at the logon screen and you'll get the logon dialog box that allows you to type in the username.