Hiding users on the Logon screen

One of the side effects of the new Logon screen is the list of all the user accounts on the computer. What if you created an account that you want only to run a service under? You do not want other users of your computer to even have the option to log on to that account because you designated it only to run a service. With the help of a simple Registry hack, it is possible to hide any account on the Logon screen so that it is no longer possible to log on to it (unless you turn on the Do not display last user name policy and manually type the username and password).

Hidden away in the local system settings is the feature that Microsoft used in the past to hide system accounts from the Logon screen. In Windows Vista, the actual Logon screen hides system accounts, so the old method code was removed from the Registry. However, the functionality still exists. In the next few steps, I show you how to re-create the missing Registry code so that you can use this feature once again to hide your accounts:

1. Click the Start button, type regedit in the Search box, and then press Enter.

2. When Registry Editor loads, navigate through HKEY_LOCAL\MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.

3. You must now create a new key. Right-click the Winlogon folder, select New, and then select Key. Name this new key SpecialAccounts.

4. Right-click the new SpecialAccounts folder, select New, and then select Key. Call this new key UserList.

5. Now you are ready to add the name of the account that you want to hide. To add a name, right-click and select a new DWORD value, as shown in Figure
6. When the new DWORD is created, enter the name of the user's account as the name of the DWORD. After you have done this, you can close the Registry Editor.

After you log off and back on or reboot, the user will not be displayed on the Logon screen. Keep in mind that no one will now be able to log on to this account interactively (as in having a graphical session).

If you ever change your mind and want the account to display on the Logon screen again, just delete the entry that you made in the list in the system registry, and everything will be back to the way it once was.