On 24 Nov 2007 at 13:53, Brenda Dencer wrote:

> What is a reason to keep the log-on page when Windows boots?  I want
> to get rid of  that part of the boot process. I'm the only person
> using my computers and if someone else were to use the computer for
> any period of time, I could add it back.  So, how do I get rid of it?
> I went into the control panel > user accounts >windows logon and
> cleared that box, but a user name window comes up.  I click ok
> (without a password) and I can get back into the computer. I don't
> want to have to do that. 

  The approach that works seems to be to set Windows to automatically log on 
to the account you want to use.

  That said, there are at least two reasons why I would recommend AGAINST 
doing this.
  First, what if your computer gets stolen?  If there's a login password, 
there's a chance that that the machine will be either recovered or 
reformatted without any private information you had on it being accessed.  
An identity theft getting access to that stored information might make the 
damage much worse than just the loss of your machine.
  Secondly, there are some things that can only be done from an account with 
adminitrative privileges.  Best practice is to only use a privileged account 
when necessary, and use a non-privileged account for routine stuff.  Using 
an auto login almost certainly means using a privileged account all the time 
-- this means that things like website scripts etc, which might be 
malicious, are also run at that privilege level.

  If Vista got one thing right, it's that privileged accounts don't normally 
run with privilege enabled, so you can do this and it will prompt for the 
password only when administrator privilege is actually needed.

David Gillett

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