Windows 2000 auto logon

[totoymola]

Hi.

I have a slight problem regarding auto logon in Windows 2000. I am working as computer lab technician in our school and all their computers there use Windows 2000. Each computer has 2 (or 3) user accounts, the admin and the restricted student account. Most of the time the computers use the restricted account, and we only use the admin account if we have to install new softwares, updates and do some configurations. My problem is, everytime I logon using the admin account, I have to type the username and password manually. That is a major pain especially when I have to do it on 40 (sometimes more) computers. I'm just wondering if you can recommend a FREE and small utility (preferably command-line) that can help me do this job.

This is what I want to do:

Using the main computer (the computer that I use there, and it is always logged in as the admin), I want to run a batch script that will shutdown and restart all the remote computers (they are all logged in as the limited account). I use the command line utility PSShutdown from Sysinternals to do that. After restarting, I want them to log on using the admin account so I won't have to type the username and password on all of them. I don't want that auto logon to be permanent because after I finish updating, I have to restart all of them and logon using the restricted account again. But I don't know any tool that can do that. There is an auto-logon tool from Syinternals, but it's features are very limited. I cant use it to control a remote system.

One more thing. We use Novell client, and in order to login using the admin account, I have to check the "Workstation only" checkbox on the login screen. I think that makes this more complicated.

I will appreciate any suggestions that you can give me. Thanks!

[totoymola]

Still waiting..

[Earthcoder]

We use win2k here on are Av machines and change details in reg to allow autolog in for avcomputers.

details http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q310584/

Maybe it will help

[sixpack]

take a look at this:

http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.ph...topic=10708&hl=

[Martin Zugec]

Apply reg remotely to allow autologon, restart machine, do what you want and when you finish just apply reg to remove autologon.

I am using this (called Secondary logon) in few companies and it is one of my favourite methods when I dont have SW like Unicenter/SMS by my hand

[totoymola]

Thank you Earthcoder and sixpack for the links. I will read and try them.

Apply reg remotely to allow autologon, restart machine, do what you want and when you finish just apply reg to remove autologon.

I am using this (called Secondary logon) in few companies and it is one of my favourite methods when I dont have SW like Unicenter/SMS by my hand

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the tip. That is what I was actually thinking. However, my problem is, the limited account doesn't allow modification of registry. And the "Workstation Only" checkbox in the logon screen confuses me. Oh well..

Do you guys know of a tool that can modify the registry remotely? I purchased a software called Registry Workshop several months ago, and it can open the registry of remote computers. However, it doesn't show everything, and I can't modify the registry of the limited account.

[chilifrei64]

XP registry editor has the ability to edit the registry remotely

Open regedit-> click file -> click "Connect Network Registry"

The remote computer will need the "Remote Registry" Service started for this to work and you will also need permissions on that machine

[Martin Zugec]

reg.exe also support remote regediting...

[totoymola]

Yes. You are both correct. Regedit+Remote Registry and the reg.exe from the resource kit can both modify registries remotely. But the thing is, the remote system is not using the admin account. So I can't really modify their registries..

[Martin Zugec]

Yes, you can Because these sessions are not running under wks user account, but under your account. And if you dont have admin privileges there, you can use runas command

[totoymola]

Hmmm.. That's odd.. Because I tried the exact same thing weeks ago without success. Anyway, I will try it again. And if its really not working, I will just try the psexec + autologon method. However, i have to manually "allow" psexec on all the computers because the anti-virus is blocking it.

[RogueSpear]

The fact that you are using Novell clients kind of disqualifies me from helping you too much. But I can give you some tips to start off with. First off, if you are in an Active Directory domain you could always make a little machine shut down script that writes the registry values which make the restricted user log on automatically at the next boot. So no matter who logs off, those registry entries are written. It would add almost no added time to the shutdown sequence. If you're not in an AD domain, I just know that Novell has to support machine shutdown scripts somehow. The key with a machine shutdown script is that they run under the system credentials, so there's no problem with permissions.

For the logon as Admin part of your problem, I'd probably tackle this with a little batchfile. You'll need to use a little application called LSRunAs to pass administrative credentials in order to write the appropriate registry entries. LSRunAs supports encryption of the password using a hash so there isn't too much of a security issue there.

Here is a little VBScript subroutine I regularly use as a part of my uA installs that sets the AutoLogon information in the registry. You don't have to use it, but it would at least give you the registry keys and values:

Sub SetAutoLogin
	Dim strKeyPath
	strKeyPath = "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\"
	ws.RegWrite strKeyPath & "AutoAdminLogon", "1", "REG_SZ"
	ws.RegWrite strKeyPath & "AutoLogonCount", "1", "REG_SZ"
	ws.RegWrite strKeyPath & "DefaultPassword", "thisisareallylongpassword", "REG_SZ"
	ws.RegWrite strKeyPath & "DefaultUserName", "Admin", "REG_SZ"
	ws.RegDelete strKeyPath & "DefaultDomainName", "MYDOMAIN", "REG_SZ"
End Sub

Edited August 2, 2005 by RogueSpear

[totoymola]

Thanks for the tip and for the code RogueSpear! I can't wait to try it out. I'm currently enjoying my two weeks vacation (thats why I wasn't able to read monitor the posts on this thread) and I'll be working again on the 21st.

Dude, I must admit that I'm a REAL noob when it comes to networking.. I don't even understand the concept of active directory!

Edited August 14, 2005 by totoymola