XP: Logon Automatically When Starting Windows

Contributed by AlexTheBeast  
Tagged: Windows  

This tutorial shows how to manually log on after booting or restarting your system.

By default XP requires a user to logon everytime he/she restarts the system. For single user systems this continues to be a good practice for security reasons; however, many users find the process of logging-in silly in a one-user system.

The recipe will describe how the user can have XP automatically log-in during start-up.

Note: This can also be done automatically through Microsoft’s unsupported power tool TweakUI which has an autologon feature.

Here’s the manual way to do this:

1. Click on the Start Menu
2. Click Run
3. In the open field type: control userpasswords2
4. Click OK
5. An User Accounts Dialog Box will open.
6. Select the Users Tab
7. Clear the Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer checkbox
8. Select the Advanced Tab
9. If it is not already, clear the Require users to press Ctrl-Alt-Del before logging on checkbox
10. Press Apply
11. A dialog box will open asking you for user name and password
12. Input the information into these fields
13. Click OK
14. Click on Start Menu again
15. Open your Control Panel
16. Open User Accounts
17. Click Change the way users log on or off
18. If it is not already, clear checkbox for Use the Welcome Screen
19. If it is not already, clear checkbox for Use Fast User Switching
20. Click the Apply Options button
21. Reboot to see your results

I have tested this on systems that are in not part of a network. Network systems may require additional/different steps such as described in this Microsoft Support Article.