October 31, 2008

Clearing the last user logged on Windows XP

Every time a user logs into your computer or laptop/notebook, their username is stored, and that name is displayed the next time the classic logon screen is displayed. This can be a nice feature, but it also can be a feature that causes a security problem. Knowing a user’s username is half the battle of breaking into a computer.

If you have sensitive information on your computer, I suggest that you follow these instructions to hide the last user logged on:

  1. Start up the Registry Editor again by clicking the Start menu and selecting Run. Thentype regedit in the box and click OK.

  2. Navigate through HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SOFTWARE, Microsoft,Windows, CurrentVersion, policies, and system. Locate the DontDisplayLastUserName entry.

  3. Right-click the entry and select Modify. Then type in a 1 to activate the feature, Click OK, and you are finished.

  4. If you ever want to reverse this hack, just repeat the instructions above and replace the 1 with 0 for the value of DontDisplayLastUserName.

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