Windows – Disable Windows 8 Welcome Screen

windows 8windows 8.1windows-registry

I am developing a WPF window based application that runs in full screen. It's intended to work like an embedded system so I don't want to show any Windows logo screen or other similar information to end users.

I modified the appropriate Registry settings to automatically login an admin user. This works fine in Windows 7 32/64 bit as well as Windows 8.

I want to disable or change this Welcome Screen in Windows 8 or 8.1:
I want to remove this screen

I searched for some articles and tips and tricks but no luck.

I want to make this change using the Registry.

Thanks

Best Answer

Disabling the Logon UI is not possible on desktop or server operating systems in any way supported by Microsoft. At best, you could hack it away. Since it won’t speed things up, the screen would simply be blank during that time. Not exactly what you’d call user experience.

It might be possible with Windows Embedded.

This behavior also consistent with earlier Windows NT versions. They all have the Logon UI visible after early boot processes are finished.

Here’s the relevant MSDN page about Windows 8.1 Embedded Industry. Apparently, you can get what you want simply by activating Custom Logon:

By default, Custom Logon launches directly into the shell without displaying the sign-in UI when automatic sign-in is enabled.

Related Solutions

Windows 7 – Always Display Last User on Welcome Screen

This isn't the solution to the exact question you asked, but will accomplish your goal of being able to elevate to the administrator account but not have it show up on the login screen.

Here's what you need to do. Use the special accounts registry entry to hide the administrator account (and whatever other accounts you want to hide) from the login screen. Then, configure UAC to prompt for both a username and password, instead of just showing the clickable usernames. This will let you elevate to one of the hidden accounts, because it behaves much like the "do not display last username" setting does for the login. This is what it will look like; you can type in any (administator's) username:

elevation

In order to configure this, all you have to do is create one registry value. Go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies and create a key called CredUI if it doesn't already exist. Then, within CredUI, create a DWORD called EnumerateAdministrators with the value 0x00000000. That's it! Now you can elevate to any account you want, and hide any account you want.

If you don't want to edit the registry by hand, you can paste the following code into notepad, and save it as a file with a .reg extension, then open the file to add the data to the registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\CredUI]
"EnumerateAdministrators"=dword:00000000

Windows 7 – Display Additional Boot and Shutdown Information

Type regedit in RUN dialog box and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor.

Now go to following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Policies\System

In right-side pane, look for a DWORD VerboseStatus. If you can't find it, create a new DWORD and set its name to VerboseStatus
Now change its value to any of following depending upon your requirements:
- 0 - To Disable Verbose Status Message
- 1 - To Enable Verbose Status Message
That's it. Close Registry Editor and restart your system to apply the changes.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows 7 – Always Display Last User on Welcome Screen

Windows 7 – Display Additional Boot and Shutdown Information

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