Bypassing the Logon Screen

1) At a command prompt, type netplwiz to open Advanced User Accounts.
2)On the Users tab, clear the Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer check box and then click OK. Note that the Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer check box doesn't appear if your computer is a member of a domain. Only computers that aren't part of a network or are part of a workgroup can bypass the logon screen. Domain users must enter a user name and password, even to log on locally.

The Automatically Log On dialog box appears.
3)Type the user name and password for the account that you want to be logged on each time you start your computer.

Making the Logon Text Bigger

If you use a high-DPI setting to enlarge text while you're logged on, you might be disappointed to see that your setting doesn't apply to the logon screen. To remedy that situation, follow these steps:

In the Start menu search box, type regedit and press Enter to open Registry Editor.

In Registry Editor, navigate to the HKU\.Default\Control Panel\Desktop key.

If a DWORD value named LogPixels does not exist, create one.

Double-click the LogPixels value. Be sure that Base is set to Decimal, and then set the value to the desired resolution in dots per inch. The default setting is 96 DPI; larger values increase the text size. For example, setting the value to 120 increases the size by 25 percent. (96 times 1.25 is 120.)

Log off to see the changes. The first time each user logs on after making this change, Windows applies the new DPI setting to the user's desktop as well as the logon screen. Users who want to change to a different text size can do so by visiting Display in Control Panel. For details, see "Making Text Easier to Read" on page 143.

Setting a Custom Desktop Background

Method 1:
http://tweaks.com/software/tweakslogon/

Method 2:
To use a desktop background other than the default image shown in Figure 16-7 (or one provided by the manufacturer of your computer), follow these steps:

In the Start menu search box, type regedit and press Enter to open Registry Editor.

In Registry Editor, navigate to the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background key.

If a DWORD value named OEMBackground does not exist, create one. Set this value's data to 1.

In Windows Explorer, navigate to %Windir%\System32\Oobe\Info\Backgrounds. (If the subfolders of Oobe do not exist, create them.)

Copy the image you want to this folder, using these guidelines:

The image must be in jpg format, and the file size cannot exceed 256 KB.

Scale the image to the pixel dimensions of your primary monitor's native (or default) resolution, and name the file Backgroundwwwxhhh.jpg, where www and hhh represent the width and height, in pixels (for example, Background1600x1200.jpg).

Because this feature doesn't support all screen resolutions, create a copy of the image file and name it BackgroundDefault.jpg. If Windows is unable to use the resolution-specific image, it uses this one and stretches it to fit.

If that procedure sounds too daunting, download the Tweaks.com Logon Changer, a utility that compresses your image file (to stay under the file-size limit) as well as safely diving into the registry and deeply nested folders for you. Get it from w7io.com/1603.

Hide the name of the last user to log on

Inside Out: Hide the name of the last user to log on
On a computer joined to a domain, by default the name and picture of the last user who logged on appears on the logon screen. On a system that's used primarily by a single user, this is a convenient feature that allows the user to log on again without typing his or her name each time. For a computer that's shared by many users, you might prefer not to show the last user. You can prevent the last-used name from appearing by typing secpol.msc at an elevated command prompt to open Local Security Policy. In Local Security Policy, open Local Policies\Security Options. Then enable the policy setting named Interactive Logon: Do Not Display Last User Name.

Working with UAC

Advanced User Accounts If your computer is joined to a domain, clicking the Manage User Accounts link in User Accounts opens Advanced User Accounts. (The title bar of the dialog box doesn't include the word Advanced, however.) If your computer is not joined to a domain, you can open this version by typing netplwiz at a command prompt.


Local Users And Groups This Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in—which is available only in Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions—provides access to more account management features than User Accounts and is friendlier than command-line utilities. You can start Local Users And Groups, shown in Figure 16-5, in any of the following ways:

In Computer Management, open System Tools, Local Users And Groups.

At a command prompt, type lusrmgr.msc.

In Advanced User Accounts, click the Advanced tab, and then click the Advanced button.