Windows Vista : Custom Startups with the Advanced Options Menu & Useful Windows Vista Logon Strategies

Custom Startups with the Advanced Options Menu

To specify an advanced option for this choice, press F8.

If you press F8, you get to the Advanced Boot Options menu, which looks like this:

          Advanced Boot Options
Choose Advanced Options for: Microsoft Windows Vista
(use the arrow keys to highlight your choice.)
    
    Safe Mode
    Safe Mode with Networking
    Safe Mode with Command Prompt
    
    Enable Boot Logging
    Enable low-resolution video (640×480)
    Last Known Good Configuration (advanced)
    Directory Services Restore Mode
    Debugging Mode
    Disable automatic restart on system failure
    Disable Driver Signature Enforcement

    Start Windows Normally

The Start Windows Normally option loads Windows Vista in the usual fashion. You can use the other options to control the rest of the startup procedure:

Useful Windows Vista Logon Strategies

When you install Windows Vista, the setup program asks you to supply a username and optional password for one or more people who will be accessing the computer. How you initially log on to Windows Vista depends on what you did at that point of the install:

• If you didn’t specify a password with the new username and your computer is not part of a network domain, Windows Vista logs on that username automatically.

• If you specified a password, if your computer is part of a domain, or if you have subsequently created multiple usernames, Windows Vista displays the Welcome screen, which lists the users (Figure 1 shows an example). Click the username you want to use, type the password (if the account has one), and press the Enter key to log on.

Figure 1. You see the Windows Vista Welcome screen if your workgroup or standalone computer is set up with a password or multiple users, or if you computer is part of a network domain.

The default logon is fine for most users, but there are many ways to change Windows Vista’s logon behavior. The rest of this section looks at a few tips and techniques for altering the way you log on to Windows Vista.

Requiring Ctrl+Alt+Delete at Startup

Protecting your Windows Vista user account with a password , though an excellent idea, is not foolproof. Hackers are an endlessly resourceful bunch, and some of the smarter ones figured out a way to defeat the user account password system. The trick is that they install a virus or Trojan horse program — usually via an infected email message or malicious Web site — that loads itself when you start your computer. This program then displays a fake version of the Windows Vista Welcome screen. When you type your user name and password into this dialog box, the program records it and your system security is compromised.

To thwart this clever ruse, Windows Vista enables you to configure your system so that you must press Ctrl+Alt+Delete before you can log on. This key combination ensures that the authentic Welcome screen appears.

To require that users must press Ctrl+Alt+Delete before they can log on, follow these steps:

Logging On to a Domain

In previous versions of Windows, when you logged on to a domain you always used the Classic Windows logon, which consisted of pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete and then typing your username and password in the Log On to Windows dialog box. (You also had the option of specifying a different domain.) However, the Classic Windows logon is gone from Windows Vista. You saw in the previous section how to require Ctrl+Alt+Delete before logging on. To log on to a domain in Windows Vista, you must specify the domain as part of the username. You have two choices:

• NetBIOSName\UserName— Here, replace NetBIOSName with the NetBIOS name of the domain, and replace UserName with your network username (for example, logophilia\paulm).

• UserName@Domain— Here, replace Domain with the domain name, and replace UserName with your network username (for example, [email protected]).

Accessing the Administrator Account

One of the confusing aspects about Windows Vista is that the Administrator account seems to disappear after the setup is complete. That’s because, for security reasons, Windows Vista doesn’t give you access to the all-powerful Administrator account. I should say it doesn’t give you easy access to this account. The Welcome screen doesn’t include an option to choose the Administrator, and there is no option anywhere in the main Vista interface to enable this account to log on.

That’s probably just as well because it keeps most users much safer, but it’s annoying for those of us who might occasionally require the Administrator account. For example, tools such as the Windows Automated Installation Kit require the Administrator account. Fortunately, there are a couple of workarounds, both of which involve editing the Registry , so begin by opening the Registry Editor (click Start, type regedit in the Search box, and then click the regedit program that appears) and then navigating to the following key:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

You now have two choices:

• Set Up an Automatic Logon for the Administrator— See the next section for the details.

• Include Administrator in the Welcome screen— Create a new subkey under Winlogon named SpecialAccounts, and then create a new subkey under SpecialAccounts named UserList. In the UserList key, create a DWORD value named Administrator and set its value to 1.

Setting Up an Automatic Logon

If you’re using a standalone computer that no one else has access to (or that will be used by people you trust), you can save some time at startup by not having to type a username and password. In this scenario, the easiest way to do this is to set up Windows Vista with just a single user account without a password, which means Windows Vista logs on that user automatically at startup. If you have multiple user accounts (for testing purposes, for example) or if you want the Administrator account to be logged on automatically, you need to set up Windows Vista for automatic logons.

Open the Registry Editor and head for the following Registry key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\

You need to do three things:

Disabling Automatic Logon Override

As you saw in the Tip sidebar in the previous section, you can hold down the Shift key to override an automatic logon. There are situations where this is not preferable. For example, you might have a computer set up for a particular user and you want only that user to log on. In that case, you don’t want the user overriding the automatic logon.

To prevent the override of an automatic logon using the Shift key, open the Registry Editor once again and navigate to the following key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\

Create a new String value named IgnoreShiftOverride and set its value to 1.