Hiding user account in win xp

[rajas700]

Hopefully someone will find this useful. Ive done this on my machine as well.

To a hide an account to display on the welcome screen of xp here is a nifty way:
1. Open regedit

2. Browse to
Hkey_local_machine> software>microsoft>windows nt>winlogon>special Accounts>Userlist

Here you will see a list of all accounts on XP which are hidden and dont display on welcome screen. Yes XP does create useless accounts as you see there.

3. Go on the right pane, right click, create a new dword value with its name as the exact username you want to hide and its value as "0" without the quotes.
Now if you have only one account on XP and you want to hide it, DO NOT DO THE ABOVE! READ BELOW AND FOLLOW A NEW PROCEDURE

If you do this accidently, it will make an infinite restart loop in your computer. If you accidently do it, then just login in safe mode and remove the value you just set in the regedit.
If you only have one account and want to do this, you will have to disable welcome screen & fast user switching in USERS in control panel.

What I did was: create a dummy limited account for people who want to access my machine sometimes. And I hided my own account using the proceedure mentioned.

To access this hidden account from the welcome screen press CTRL+ALT+DEL twice and you can enter your username and password.





ps: Might I add a disclaimer that I take no responsibility if someone manages to mess up their computer using the procedure above. Backup your registry thats all I want to suggest.

[Ashis]

Thanks !