Unattended auto user logon

[Nich]

Apologies if this has come up before, half an hour playing with search didn't help me find anything useful.

My standard script to create an account that auto-logs in, is:

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
SET _USER=abc123
SET _PW=123abc

net user "%_USER%" "%_PW%" /add
net localgroup Administrators "%_USER%" /add
net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v DefaultUserName /d %_USER% /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v DefaultPassword /d %_PW% /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v AutoAdminLogon /d 1 /f

EXIT

My problem seems to be that, upon searching for DefaultPassword in the registry, you can find the stored password in all of its plain text glory.

Conversely, if I do my usual thing and use TweakUI to set up the auto-logon details for my account (it simply asks if you want to auto-logon, what the account name is, and the required password), then I can't find the password anywhere in the registry, nor the entry that'd usually hold it.

I'm aware that a person just has to turn my computer on to be able to logon, but I don't at all like knowing that someone could search through my registry to actually find the password itself.

Does anyone else know what TweakUI is doing, and how to replicate it?

[wolfshade]

Find InstallRite(freeware) its a soft who makes snapshots of regs and/or HDD -- there are many like this i think but this i use.

Just type the correct name in google and i will return a whole page of direct links to its homepage -- snaphot your regs with it before u make changes with TweakUI then use analize changes ... (u should have some experience with regs cuz it records buttons pushed sometimes(device contexts) and clearing caches or MRU's atutomatically too:) ) but it shouldn't be too hard to find what u're looking for.

[neophyte]

Nich and myself have already used registry snapshot tools, TweakUI doesn't record the password in the registry. In fact, the only change it appears to make is to Set AutoAdminLogon=1.

[MCT]

have u searched tweak ui's files? maybe its storing the password in an INI file, and reading from it on logon?

hope it helps

[Nich]

have u searched tweak ui's files? maybe its storing the password in an INI file, and reading from it on logon?

TweakUI is a single executable, that can be run from anywhere - and it's settings stay when it's deleted. If it's writing to INI or other types of file, it certainly doesn't belong to TweakUI (that I can see)

[MCT]

use a program like RegSnap and take a snapshot of your full computer , registry + all files

run tweakUI, that will tell u if it changed anything and what files were modified, i dont use tweak UI so i cant say, im just giving u this info as general Info

good luck