Enable automatic login via registry

Question

I tried setting the following keys with no effect:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DefaultUserName = username

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DefaultPassword = password

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DefaultDomainName = name of localhost

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\AutoAdminLogon = "1"

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\ForceAutoLogon = "1"

What am I doing wrong? How can I make it work? I'm using Win7 x64, but I'm also interested in a way to do it on XP.

Clarification: I need a solution that can be automated, hence I try to use the registry. Anything that requires user interaction is not fit for this question.

Answer 1

• Windows XP method: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/autologon.htm
• Windows 7 method: http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/coolstuff/Tip-Auto-Login-Your-Windows-7-User-Account

Edit: I understand that your question involves the registry, but as a general rule of thumb I suggest that you should not manually modify the registry unless there is absolutely no other way to do what you want to do.

Answer 2

It sounds as though you have done everything correctly. You should verify that all of the registry values are REG_SZ (String) Values, even the AutoAdminLogon and ForceAutoLogon Values. If they are REG_DWORD Values it won't work. Beyond that the only issue I can imagine is that you have misspelled the username and/or computer name and/or used the wrong password.

If all else fails you can use the the Autologon tool from Sysinternals. It is primarily a graphical application, however you can run it from the command line with the following syntax (make sure that autologon.exe and psexec.exe are in the same directory).

autologon /accepteula username domain password

This method is actually more secure because it will encrypt the password before it is stored. If you set the password in the registery, then any authenticated user can view the password.

If you need to you can use the PsExec utility from Sysinternals to run this command remotely.

psexec \\remotecomputername -c -f -h -u administrator -p adminpassword autologon.exe /accepteula autologonusername domain autologonpassword 

You can run psexec --help for details on what each of the flags mean. But basically, this will copy autologon.exe to the remote computer, and run it as an administrator.

Note: If you are not familiar with Sysinternals, I highly suggest you check out all of the utilities, they are a must have for any system administrator.