Secure Logon - Press CTRL + ALT + DELETE to log on

theshoemaker · 30 May 2011

I have a problem with the secure logon function on my wife's laptop.. Her lock screen is asking to press CTRL+ALT+DEL, and she would like to disable it.

I of course went into the settings and tried what was explained in Option 1, but toggling the setting in netplwiz is blocked (the check box is checked, but grey so not possible to uncheck). Not sure what this means, I tried running netplwiz as administrator and same thing.

I tried to change this in Registry editor, and to my surprise the value in DisableCAD was 0, which would mean that the function is turned off as shown in Option 3, but secure logon still seems to be on.

This is a Home Premium system, so I am unable to use Local Security Policy as outlined in Option 4.

any ideas?

Brink · 30 May 2011

Hello theshoemaker,

I have updated the REG files in Option Two to see if they may help. Please try them again. You may need to restart to fully apply.

I have also read that someone else reported that their built-in fingerprint reader software was the cause of Option One being grayed out. They said that uninstalling it allowed them to change the setting afterwards.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Gigi · 17 Jul 2011

Thanks 4 ur help Brink! The Secure Log On CTRL+ALT+DELETE was a bit bothersome 2 me. I am the Ad user. I enabled yhe options a year ago... Okay for awhile... Great tutorial & thorough.

Brink · 17 Jul 2011

You're welcome Gigi, and welcome to Seven Forums. :)

drosera · 16 Aug 2011

Hi Brink,

well made tutorial, thanks. However on my machine (W7 Pro 64bit) options two and three (registry entry variants) didn't work at all. I finally changed the settings using secpol.msc and then diffed the registry dumps of before and after the modification. In my case "DisableCAD" had to be changed in

Code:

[HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]

Automagically also "DisableCAD" in

Code:

[HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]

was changed to the same value. Changing the registry entries that you mentioned didn't have any effect.

Has the location of the setting in the registry maybe changed with some MS update?

Cheers

frank

Brink · 16 Aug 2011

Hello Frank, and welcome to Seven Forums.

The registry location below is for the Local Security Policy setting. By default it is set to Not Defined. If this is set to either Enabled or Disabled, then it will override the setting in Advanced User Accounts. I believe this is what happened with you, and why it did not work for you manually set the registry location for the Advanced User Accounts setting.

(Local Security Policy)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

(Advanced User Accounts - netplwiz)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

I have updated the tutorial and REG files to help people avoid this from now on. :)

drosera · 16 Aug 2011

Brink said:

The registry location below is for the Local Security Policy setting. By default it is set to Not Defined. If this is set to either Enabled or Disabled, then it will override the setting in Advanced User Accounts. I believe this is what happened with you, and why it did not work for you manually set the registry location for the Advanced User Accounts setting. [...]

Right. these registry settings were defined on the host itself. Could this be a consequence of some domain policy? All our hosts are part of an ActiveDirectory domain, but I have no access to these policies.

frank

Brink · 16 Aug 2011

Yes, that would be why. :)

TD7BA · 20 Dec 2011

Thanks so much Brink! I'm all for making my computer more secure. I have found all your tutorials to be helpful in some way. Thank you again, Brink!

Brink · 20 Dec 2011

You're most welcome TD7BA, and thank you. :)