Re: Tweak UI - Password encryption and autologon

From: Doug Knox MS-MVP (dknox_at_mvps.org)
Date: 08/30/05


Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:16:23 -0400

TweakUI does store the password in the Registry, un-encrypted.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

DefaultPassword

-- 
Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows Media Center\Windows Powered Smart Display\Security
Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
http://www.dougknox.com
--------------------------------
Per user Group Policy Restrictions for XP Home and XP Pro
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm
--------------------------------
Please reply only to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
Unsolicited e-mail is not answered.
 
"Larry Williams" <LarryWilliams@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:2B5A2991-888F-4243-B69E-9F86B7132290@microsoft.com...
> Okay.  Thanks.
> 
> I was hoping the Tweak stored your password in the registry but I wasn't 
> able to find it. 
> 
> I read chapter 15 of the MS XP Registry Guide and plan on seting this up 
> just before the restart and including an entry for the "AutoLogonCount" of 1 
> so the information is automatically removed after the restart.
> 
> "Doug Knox MS-MVP" wrote:
> 
>> You can't.  The autologon feature expects to see a plaintext password.    You're only option would be to write a custom GINA DLL for authentication that would know how to decrypt the stored password.
>> 
>> -- 
>> Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows Media Center\Windows Powered Smart Display\Security
>> Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
>> http://www.dougknox.com
>> --------------------------------
>> Per user Group Policy Restrictions for XP Home and XP Pro
>> http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm
>> --------------------------------
>> Please reply only to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
>> Unsolicited e-mail is not answered.
>>  
>> "Larry Williams" <LarryWilliams@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:84365F2D-EEF9-409F-85D4-B2813F7F4C6B@microsoft.com...
>> > I'm writing a program that will accept a userid and password to do an 
>> > autologon after a restart using the following registry entries:
>> > 
>> > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
>> > 
>> > DefaultUserName "your_username"
>> > DefaultPassword "your_password"
>> > AutoAdminLogon "1"
>> > 
>> > However, if for some reason my program doesn't run properly and remove the 
>> > userid/password when it's finished then I want to ensure that the password 
>> > can't just be read from the registry.  Therefore I need to know how to do the 
>> > same thing that Tweak UI does and store an encrypted version of the password.
>> > 
>> > Any ideas?
>>


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