Hide User Accounts on the Welcome Screen

Use this where you need an account on a machine to support network connections but do not want it displayed as an interactive logon option on the Welcome Screen

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList

<UserName>  REG_DWORD    0

For information regarding automatic logon look here

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc939702.aspx


This section applies to Windows 10 and how to have a separate local admin and local user accounts and elevate using the admin account when required.  At the same time the login screen does not advertise the presence of the potential accounts to login with.

Prevent accounts appearing at the logon screen:

secpol.msc
Security Settings_Local Polices_Security Options

When using local accounts on Windows 10 you may want to set
Interactive logon:Don't Display last signed-in Enabled

If the SpecialAccounts setting above is set for the Local Admin account, this causes a limitation that you will not be able to Switch User, and nor will you be able to  use RunAs Administrator to run things elevated.

There is a work around though.

Search for Notepad
Open file location
Shift Right click and select Run as a different user
Enter
.\LocalAdminAccount
password
In notepad, file open and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
right click RunAs Administrator
The cmd window is now running elevated as the admin.



I can't have my cake and eat it here :(

What I want is to have local user accounts selectable but not the local admin account.  However I also want the option to login interactively with the local admin account if necessary.

If the Don't Display last signed-in is enabled, then the user is inconvenienced by having to enter their account name at every login.

If the Don't Display last signed-in is disabled (default), then use can select but LocalAdmin will display unless it has the SpecialAccount key, but then there is no way to choose to login with the LocalAdmin.

I will settle for Selectable with LocalAdmin set with a SpecialAccounts entry.  If interactive admin logon is needed, it will need to be enabled by removing the SpecialAccounts key first.

Sequencing 32bit Registry Keys on 64bit Windows 7

During sequencing 32 bit processes writing to HKLM\Software will, as usual, end up being redirected to HKLM\Software\Wow6432node.  This will be reflected in the virtual registry tab and the keys will be shown under the HKLM\Software\Wow6432node.  Obvious perhaps but important to remember to avoid confusion hence this post !

Windows 7 WMP 12 database with network media

Windows Media Player (WMP) 12 on Windows 7 is supposed to build a database from the files it finds at locations specified in the Music "Library".  If the music library has an entry which points to a network location, then WMP 12 fails to add the items in that location to the library.  You can work around this creating a local link to the the network location and then adding the local link to the library.

Add a non-indexed UNC as a library
===========================
1. Create a folder on your hard drive for shares. i.e. c:\share
2. Create another folder in the above share. i.e. c:\share\music
2. Link the Library to this folder.
3. Delete the folder.
4. Use the mklink in an elevated command prompt to make a symbolic link. Name the link the same as the folder you created above.
i.e - mklink /d c:\share\music \\server\music
5. Done. Now you have non-indexed UNC path as a library.

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