Clearing the last user logged on

Every time a user logs into your computer, their username is stored, and that name is displayed the next time the classic logon screen is displayed. This can be a nice feature, but it also can be a feature that causes a security problem. Knowing a user’s username is half the battle of breaking into a computer. If you have sensitive information on your computer, I suggest that you follow these instructions to hide the last user logged on:

1. Start up the Registry Editor again by clicking the Start menu and selecting Run. Then type regedit in the box and click OK.

2. Navigate through HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SOFTWARE, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, policies, and system. Locate the DontDisplayLastUserName entry.

3. Right-click the entry and select Modify. Then type in a 1 to activate the feature, as shown in Figure 1-19. Click OK, and you are finished.

If you ever want to reverse this hack, just repeat the instructions above and replace the 1 with a 0 for the value of DontDisplayLastUserName.

Global logon/Welcome settings

A few hacks can modify the system logon for users of both the Welcome screen and the classic logon interface. These features can improve the quality of the screens, turn on different key locks, and fine-tune other settings such as the screensaver.

Turn on clear type

Users of flat-panel LCD monitors as well as users of laptops can take advantage of a cool new feature in Windows XP called ClearType. This new technology is an advanced version of the font-smoothing technologies that existed in previous Windows versions. When this new font-smoothing technology is turned on, the entire screen will look significantly better.

Normally, this feature is only available after a user logs into the computer, but with the help of a cool registry hack, you can enable this feature to start up before a user logs in. Follow these steps to get started:

FIGURE 1-19: Making the computer clear the last user that logged on using the Registry Editor editing the DontDisplayLastUserName entry.

1. Start up the Registry Editor by clicking the Start menu and selecting Run. Then type regedit in the box and click OK.

2. Once Registry Editor starts up, navigate through HKEY_USERS, .DEFAULT, Control Panel, and Desktop.

3. Locate the ForegroundFlashCount entry and right-click it and select Modify. There are three different options for the value of this property. 0 indicates that font smoothing will be disabled, 1 indicates to use standard font smoothing, and 2 indicates to use ClearType font smoothing.

4. Replace the value of the property with 2 to enable ClearType and then click OK to save the change.

That’s it—you are finished. You will notice that your logon screen is now much smoother than before. Some users do not like this new smooth look, so if you are one of those that miss the extra-crispy look, repeat the preceding instructions but replace the 2 with a 1 to set it back to the default settings.

Users of CRT monitors (the once-standard cathode ray tube-based monitors) can attempt to use this tweak, but ClearType was designed especially for LCD monitors, so if you are using a CRT monitor, you will not see much improvement, if any. But it doesn’t hurt to try! Working with the screensaver

If you do not sign on to your computer after a specific amount of time, it will turn on the screensaver. Changing the screensaver and modifying its settings is not as easy as changing the screensaver that is displayed when you are already logged on. You can not change the screensaver of the Logon/Welcome screen from within Display properties as you would normally change a screensaver. The only way to edit these settings is through registry hacks. Follow these steps to change the screensaver as well as the inactivity time before the screensaver is activated:

1. First, you will need to start up the Registry Editor. Click the Start button and select Run. Then type regedit in the box and click OK.

2. Once the Registry Editor starts up, navigate through HKEY_USERS, .DEFAULT, Control Panel, and Desktop.

3. First, change the amount of time the system waits after the last activity detected before starting the screensaver. To do this, right-click the ScreenSaveTimeOut entry and select Modify. The amount of time to wait is stored in seconds. By default, the system will wait 600 seconds (10 minutes) before starting up the screensaver. If you want to change this value to something shorter, such as 1 minute, then just enter in a new value, which for one minute would be 60. Next, click OK to save your changes.

4. Next, change the screensaver that is displayed. By default, the boring flat Windows XP logo screensaver is displayed. Try something a little more exciting, such as the 3D flying Windows logo. To change the screensaver that is displayed, you will want to modify the SCRNSAVE.EXE entry. Right-click this entry and select Modify. You will want to change the value of logon.scr to reflect the name of the file for the screensaver that you want to use that is located in the C:\Windows\System32 directory. Because I did not know the name of the file for the 3D Windows XP screensaver, I had to do a search for all of the files on my computer that had a .scr extension by using the search feature in the Start menu and searching for *.scr, as shown in Figure 1-20. The name of the .scr files are usually very descriptivUsers of CRT monitors (the once-standard cathode ray tube-based monitors) can attempt to use this tweak, but ClearType was designed especially for LCD monitors, so if you are using a CRT monitor, you will not see much improvement, if any. But it doesn’t hurt to try!