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I've been using a "pool" Windows 7 (Enterprise edition) computer and now need to hand it back to our systems team so it can be used by someone else at some point in the future.

However, the next person to hit the logon screen is going to be offered the default option of logging on as me and, if they're used to logging into their own system with their own credentials as default, could end up locking my account due to incorrect password attempts (this has happened to a colleague before).

So, is there a way of making it "forget" I was the last user so that the default at the logon screen for the next user is to enter a completely new user ID and password, as if no-one had ever logged on or the local policy was set never to remember the last user?

Note: I don't want to permanently change the local security policy for the computer as a whole (I don't have the authority to do this anyway) so please don't direct me to https://superuser.com/a/576214/2447 or a similar answer!

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    Ask your IT staff for assistance. The simplest way is for them to simplest assist the new owner when they login. Your otions are very limited since your not an administrator on the domain.
    – Ramhound
    Aug 13, 2013 at 11:44
  • If you have to turn it in to your "systems team", they are most likely are aware and remove your user account before issuing it to the next user. All you have to do is ask them when you turn it in.
    – CharlieRB
    Aug 13, 2013 at 12:31
  • 'Cleaning' the laptop after it gets returned should be S.O.P.. Should. We ran into the same problem as the OP described before we started cleaning laptops. In our case the user on the pool laptops had root/admin rights, so we reimaged them completely.
    – Hennes
    Aug 13, 2013 at 14:25
  • Actually, I do have Admin rights on the computer (I'm a software developer so need to be able to install tools, start/stop system processes, etc.), but I categorically do not have authority to change anything relating to security policy. (My company handles a lot of personal data so our security procedures are pretty well defined)
    – Rob Gilliam
    Aug 13, 2013 at 19:54

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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As someone who works in IT I would consider this a very good question from a user to ask me. Preferably even so I could add it to the default configuration of all pool laptops.

(An alternative would be to completely wipe a laptop before returning it to the pool, which is what I did).

If your admin is up to speed and company policy allows this then it this change can be made in mere minutes. If (s)he has not done this before you can show the following screenshots: (Do not try this yourself. For one you already stated that you do not have the admin rights. But it is also very bad not to try to change these things yourself. Instead I repeat myself and say "ask IT, explain why it is a good idea". The pictures on how to do it are just in case you need to help your ITer along).

Start, control panel, administrative tools, local security policy:

enter image description here

In the local security policy options:

  • Select tab "security options"
  • on the right hand part select "Interactive login: Do not display last user name" and enable it.

enter image description here

Note that the example is for someone doing this locally. There are multiple ways to set if the laptop is part of a domain.

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You can remove the relevant registry entry that it uses to show the last logged on user. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\LastLoggedOnUser Delete all of the relevant keys for last logged on user and it works (tested for Windows 8).

Credit to RobertAssum for his Microsoft Technet forum post which answered this question for me.

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