I, like quite a few computer owners, am almost the only person to use my machine. It always has annoyed me that when I boot up my machine I can’t just walk away and come back to a ready to use machine. That’s because it will load Windows fine, but when that’s done I still won’t be logged in. So I enter my password and then wait while resources get sucked up by various applications that start loading.
One could argue with why these applications load at this time, or why they need to suck up so many resources that the it’s hard to use the machine for a minute or two longer but that’s another post. The other way to avoid this problem is to have your user automatically logged in. But I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of my computer not needing a password, despite it being locked inside my apartment, and the knowledge that a determined person who was inside my apartment already could surely defeat that protection given ample time.
I’ve finally found the solution to this problem. First, start with the automatic login. Tap Window-R and type netplwiz. This loads the Advanced User Accounts Control Panel.
If you have more than one user configured make sure your user name is selected. Next, uncheck the box "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer."
As I mentioned the problem is now your computer boots up and is wide open. The fix is to take advantage of Vista’s much enhanced task scheduler. You can either run taskschd.msc /s or choose Task Scheduler from Administrative Tools. Choose Action\Create Task.
On the General tab make sure "Run with highest privileges" and "Run only when user is logged on" are both checked.
Go to the triggers tab and click New and select, Begin the task: "At log on". Make sure "Enabled" is checked too before clicking OK.
Almost done now. On the Actions tab, click New again. Select Action: "Start a program". In Program/script, type %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\rundll32.exe. Last, in Add arguments, type user32.dll, LockWorkStation. Click okay, click Run now to test, or reboot.
In my testing you won’t even see the desktop. All your user login work will be taken care of and you’ll see just the login screen. For a small bit of added security, go back to netplwiz, and on the Advanced tab choose "Require users to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete".
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