Setting Windows NT/2000/XP to  to automatically logon to the machine and network, bypassing the Winlogon dialog box.

You may want to put 24x7 Scheduler shortcut in the Windows StartUp folder so it will start whenever you boot or restart Windows. However, it will not start until you type in the Winlogon dialog your user name and password in order to logon to the machine and network. It seems that  you cannot use powerful "Reboot Windows After Job" feature allowing unattended reboot.

There is an very little known Windows NT feature that allows you to bypass Winlogon dialog on startup.

To enable this feature you need to add several new values to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon key:

  1. Add a new value of 'DefaultUserName' and set the data to the username you wish to automatically logon as.
  2. Add a new value of 'DefaultPassword' and set this to the password for the username above.
  3. Add a new value of 'DefaultDomainName' and set this to the domain of the user. Ignore this value if the NT box is not participating in NT Domain security.
  4. Add a new value of 'AutoAdminLogon' and set it to either '1' to enable auto logon or '0' to disable.
  5. Exit and reboot, Windows should not ask for a password and automatically show the desktop of the user.

Warning: The password is stored in the registry, which means anyone who has access to the machine has access to the password