Skip to main content

Hide User Account In Windows 7

I have a home network consisting of all Microsoft Windows PCs. To make file sharing and networking easier, I create user accounts for all the users on my home network on every single computer. This works well with one small problem, each computer starts up with a welcome screen with every user listed, even though only one person really uses a particular computer. It's a small annoyance, but it bugged me a bit so I went out and searched out how to hide a user account in Windows 7 (this same tip will also work in Vista). If you have Windows XP just download TweakUI and their is an option in that free utility for hiding user accounts.

So here is a quick guide on how to hide a user account in Windows 7.

*IMPORTANT: before preceding,  know that if you hide your only administrator account you may have a very hard time getting back into your system as an administrator or logging on at all. So proceed with caution and make sure and then double check and make sure again that you are hiding the correct account and that you are not hiding your only administrator account. With that out of the way...see below...

How to Hide a User Account in Windows 7

1) Click on the start menu and type in regedit




2) Select "regedit" from the search results and click yes at the UAC prompt.

3) In regedit navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\

4) Right click on the Winlogon folder and select "New" and then select "Key". Note your Windows 7 install may already have these keys that we are creating, in that case you can skip the next few steps.




5) Name the new Key: SpecialAccounts

6) Right click on the new "SpecialAccounts" Key and select "New" and then "Key"

7) Name this new Key: UserList

8) Now select the newly created "UserList" Key. In the right pane right click on an open area and select "New" and then select "DWORD (32-bit Value)"





9) Name this new DWORD the exact same name as the user account that you want to hide. So if the user you wish to hide is "joe", then name this value "joe"

10) Double click on the new DWORD that you created. A new window will open, set the value to "0" (the number zero no quotes) if you want to hide the user. You can set it to "1" if you ever want to unhide the account. Once you set the value click "OK" and close Regedit

The next time you reboot your computer you should notice that the user is hidden from the welcome screen. I tested this in the 64-bit version Windows 7 professional and the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate RC.



Sources:

IntelliAdmin: Hide user accounts in Windows 7

My Digital LifeHow to Create Hidden User Account

WinXPTutor's XP ResourcesHow do I show or hide an user account in the Welcome Screen?


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Merge Multiple PowerPoint Presentations into one File

Below are the steps that I use to merge multiple PowerPoint presentations into one single presentation. Their are a few different ways to accomplish this task, but the steps listed below are the ones that have worked well for me in the past. Here are the steps... 1) First open up all the PowerPoint presentations that you want to merge into one show. After you have opened all your presentations you can either choose to create a new PowerPoint file or merge them into an existing file. 2) Open up any of your other presentations and select the "View" tab and select the "slide sorter" view. 3) Once in slide sorter, select the slides you wish to copy or press "Ctrl+A" to select all the slides. 4) Open the merged PowerPoint file. 5) Select where you want the new slides to go and press "Ctrl-V" to paste in the new slides. The copied slides will now be pasted into your new merged presentation, but if the slides have different templates

How to Setup Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound in VLC

Here's how to setup VLC media player for Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound output through your computer's coaxial or optical digital audio output: 1) Launch VLC and click on the "Tools" menu and select "Preferences". 2) Once on the "Preferences" page select the "Audio" tab on the left hand side of the page. 3) Place a check mark next to "Enable audio" and "Use S/PDIF when available".  For the "Force detection of Dolby Surround" setting choose Auto and under the "Output" section, choose "Win32 waveOut extension output" as output type. The rest of the settings are optional.                                                                                                       4) Restart VLC and your done.

Find Google on Twitter

I found this  post on the Official Google Blog . The post listed all the accounts that Google has created on Twitter , and they even divided it up by category. To see the list of Twitter accounts that Google has created on Twitter you can click here: Google accounts on Twitter