The classic logon screen, also known as the Windows 2000 style screen, has many benefits over the new Welcome screen for some users. Users that are concerned about the security of their system often do not want a list of all of the user’s accounts to be displayed when they turn on the computer.
In corporate environments, the classic logon screen provides the capability to log into domains (Windows network security servers), although the Welcome screen does not have this capability. Additionally, some people just do not like change that much and they do not like the new Welcome screen. Also, if you are a minimalist and like to keep things simple and uncluttered, you may like the classic logon screen better because it is very simple and only takes up a small amount of your screen.
This next section is dedicated to showing you how to turn on the classic logon screen as well as customize it a bit.
Switching to classic logon
The classic logon can always be reached on the Welcome screen by pressing Ctrl_Alt_Delete two times. If you want to completely get rid of the Welcome screen, doing so is very simple. Before you disable the Welcome screen, you should also be aware that doing so will disable Fast User Switching. Fast User Switching gives you the ability to switch between accounts on your computer without having to log out of one account to log on to another. Most users never use this feature, so having it disabled will not change anything. Follow these steps to kill the new Welcome screen:
1. Click the Start menu and select Run. Then type nusrmgr.cpl in the box and click OK. This will start up the User Accounts control panel applet.
2. Once you see the User Accounts app, click Change The Way Users Log On Or Off. Then, uncheck the box next to Use The Welcome Screen, and click Apply Options.
3. Now, you will no longer see the Welcome screen.
If you ever want to use the Welcome screen again, just go back into the User Accounts control panel applet and check the box for the Use The Welcome Screen.
Now that you have the classic logon screen activated, there are a few things that you can do to make it look a little better and unique.
Changing the logon screen background color as well as the visual style and color scheme of the logon screen are all examples of ways you can hack the classic logon screen to make it unique.
Changing the Logon Background
Ever want to change the background color of the classic logon screen from light blue to some
new color? Windows makes this difficult, because there are no options anywhere in graphical user interfaces of Windows to change it. However, with the help of the Registry Editor, you can easily change the color of the logon screen.To get started, follow these steps:
1. First, you will want to start up the Registry Editor by clicking the Start menu and selecting Run. Then type regedit in the box and click OK.
2. Once the Registry Editor starts up, you will want to expand HKEY_USERS, .DEFAULT, Control Panel, and then Colors.
3. Once you have expanded the Colors key, you will see all of the different default user settings. These are all of the settings that are used on the logon screen. The entry that you will be interested in is called Background. You will notice that the background entry has a value that contains three different numbers. Each of these numbers represents a different color makeup in the RGB color format. The first number is red, the second is green, and the third is blue. The numbers can range from 0 to 255. A RGB Value of “255 255 255” is white; “0 0 0” is black. Changing the color is not as simple as replacing the numbers with the word red; first you have to convert the color that you want to use to the correct RGB numbers.
Tip: An easy way to convert a color to a RGB number value is to use Microsoft Paint, which can be found in the Start menu under Accessories. Once you have Paint up and running, double-click one of the colors in the color palette; this will bring up the Edit Colors window. Next, click the Define Custom Colors button. This will expand the window and will show you the Red, Green, and Blue values for any color you select. Click the boxes in the Basic Colors section to see their RGB values or if you do not see a color you like, use your mouse to click around on the color image to the right to get a custom color. Once you have found a color you like, just write down the number of Red, Green, and Blue. These values can be found in the lower-right corner of the screen.
4. When you have found the color that you want to use as the background and have also converted it to the Red, Green, and Blue format, you are ready to edit the entry. Rightclick the entry, and select Modify.
5. In the Edit String box, replace the numbers so that the first number is the number of red, followed by a space. Then, repeat that format for the other two colors so that your entry looks something like this entry for orange, “255 128 0”. Click OK when you are finished to save the change.
Once you change the color, the next time you reboot and the classic logon screen is displayed, you will see your new background color.
If you ever want to revert your computer back to the default blue color, repeat the steps above to change the color and set the value of the background entry to “0 78 152”.
Setting a background image for the logon screen
If you do not want to change the color of the screen, perhaps you have an image that you would like to set as the background to appear behind the logon window. Once again, the only way to set this is to use the Registry Editor to hack the default user settings which are displayed on the logon screen.To get started, follow these steps:
1. Click the Start menu and select Run. Then type regedit in the box and click OK. This will start up the Registry Editor.
2. Once the Registry Editor has loaded, you will want to expand HKEY_USERS, .DEFAULT, Control Panel, and the Desktop key. Next, you should see all of the different entries for desktop properties. The entries that you will be interested in are Wallpaper and WallpaperStyle.
3. Right-click the Wallpaper entry and select Modify. Then type in the full path to the
image that you want to use on your computer. Let’s assume that you want to set the nice grassy hills photo as your background. This file is located at C:\WINDOWS\Web\ Wallpaper. The name of the file is bliss.bmp. Therefore, the full path of the image file is C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper\bliss.bmp.
4. Once you have the path to the file set, you can click the OK button to save the change. Now you can change the WallpaperStyle entry if you want to change how the wallpaper will be displayed. You have three different options: 0 _ centered, 1 _ tiled, 2 _ stretched to full screen. If you want to change the way it is displayed, just right-click the WallpaperStyle entry and select Modify, then enter the corresponding number value for the style you want to use. Click OK to save, and you are finished!
Now you have worked with customizing the look of the background, let’s move on to changing the way the sign-in box looks.
Changing the visual style and color scheme
Changing the visual style and color scheme can greatly increase the visual appeal of the classic logon screen. Instead of using the default blue Windows XP style on the screen, you can specify any style that is installed on your computer as well as the different color schemes that some styles have. This hack works great in combination with setting a background image. You can create a nice clean look that still looks good without using the Welcome screen.
To get started, you will be using the Registry Editor again. Also, before you can change the visual style, you should be aware that you will need to apply a patch to your system so that you can run Visual styles that other people have made for Windows XP. More on this in Chapter 4, where you will find out where to get Visual styles from and how to install them. Just be aware that you will not be able to change the visual style of the classic logon window until you have read Chapter
4. If you attempt to change it now, on an unpatched system, you will run into problems. However, if you just want to change the color scheme of the default Windows XP style, then you will have no problems right now at all. Now that I have warned you about the possible problems you may encounter, let’s get started:
1. Click the Start menu and select Run. Then type regedit in the box and click OK.
2. Once the Registry Editor is open, navigate through HKEY_USERS, DEFAULT, Software, Microsoft,Windows, CurrentVersion, and ThemeManager. You will now see all of the theme properties for the logon screen. The two entries that you will be working with are ColorName and DllName. ColorName specifies the color scheme of the current visual style that is specified in the DllName property.
3. First, let’s change the color scheme of the default Windows XP style. You have three different choices for the ColorName value: NormalColor (default blue look), Metallic (silver), Homestead (olive green look).To change this property, just right-click it and select Modify. Then change the value to the corresponding value for the color scheme you want to use, such as Homestead. For example, if you want to use the olive green look on the classic logon screen, you will want to set the ColorName value to Homestead.
4. If you want to change the visual style of the classic logon screen, and have already read Chapter 4 and have patched your computer, then you will want to edit the DllName property. Right-click it and select Modify. Then, type in the path to the visual style you want to use. The path for the default Windows XP style is %SystemRoot%\Resources\ themes\Luna\Luna.msstyles. The %SystemRoot% in the path is just an environment variable that the system interprets as C:\Windows or whatever folder where you installed XP. Once you have the new path entered that points to the visual style that you downloaded or made, click OK to save your changes.
5. When you have changed the visual style, you will also have to update the ColorName property to reflect the names of the different color schemes within the visual style. By default, you should set this property to NormalColor for most Visual styles. Once you have completed this, you are finished!
Once you reboot or log out, you will see the changes that you made. If you are having display problems after you install a new visual style, make sure that you have properly patched your computer. Remember, you have to patch your computer, not just install a program like Style XP. Refer to Chapter 4 for much more information on Visual styles.
Clearing the last user logged on
Every time a user logs into your computer, 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. Then type 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.
If you ever want to reverse this hack, just repeat the instructions above and replace the 1 with a 0 for the value of DontDisplayLastUserName.
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