Solved Auto Login and Lock

[osomphane]

Hello,

I found a guide somewhere detailing the following instructions:
1) run "netplwiz" and uncheck "users must enter password..."
2) create a startup shortcut "rundll32 user32,LockWorkStation"

But, Raymond Chen says "Please don't do this. The LockWorkStation function was not designed to be run via Rundll32. To be run via Rundll32 a function needs to match a very specific function signature, which LockWorkStation doesn't. As a result, the stack is misaligned on return and what happens next is anybody's guess."

So, instead of that, I made a shurtcut for "tsdiscon.exe" which is goes into the switch user screen. Is that a proper way to do it, or is it improper like the runddl method above?

 

[Brink]

Hello Osomphane, and welcome to Vista Forums.

I'm not certain what the purpose of this would be for. When an account is locked, you will have to enter the password anyway to unlock and log on to that account again anyway. It seems like it would serve the same purpose to just disable auto login and allow Vista to startup to the log on screen instead and to log in when ready. For sleep modes, you can enable the password protection on wakeup option to force a log in at wakeup to prevent unauthorized access.

Hope this helps some,
Shawn

 

[H2SO4]

Why are you after autologon+lock? As Brink (Shawn... man it's confusing when someone uses two names ) said, it's not immediately clear why you're trying to do something that's generally Not A Good Thing.

I presume you've got something running as a result of a logon, like a service except it's not really a "win32 Service", so that's why you need a logged-on session? If that's it, you're better off using SRVANY or one of its newer derivatives to turn your executable into a real service - the kind that interfaces with the Service Control Manager - so you don't need anyone logged on for that.

Otherwise, Raymond Chen is of course always right - not every exported function in every DLL is compatible with rundll32, and that can lead to all sorts of mayhem.

 

[osomphane]

I am running a headless and mousless eee box as a server and remoting in with live mesh. Hence the need to logon and then lock the computer..

 

[H2SO4]

If you wrap the Live Mesh executable (whatever that may be) into a service, you'll no longer need to logon+lock because the service will run even with nobody on the console of the box.

Look up SRVANY if you'd like some pointers on where to begin. It's not particularly easy, but it's not rocket science either. If you're invoking functions in DLLs this is well within your skillset

 

[osomphane]

ok, so it seems that I went the retarded way about this.. the remote desktop component of live mesh is loaded as a service on windows boot, so there was no real need to have an automatic login..

thanks for the info!

 

[Torch]

Existing methods to lock the desktop after auto logon just call the LockWorkStation function through rundll32.exe via some shortcut placed in Start Up or registry. That takes a while to lock depending on how bloated your Windows is and till then it just sits on the desktop. And Safe Mode doesn't get locked since the start up items don't run in Safe Mode. More importantly using rundll32.exe for these functions causes a stack corruption which will eventually crash the system or worse.

So I made a replacement shell (Windows starts lock.exe instead of Explorer) which locks first and then launches Explorer in the background. It also handles Safe Mode and Safe Mode with Command Prompt and detects and launches the x64 cmd.exe on an x64 system.

Auto Logon & Lock v1.0

 

[lbr3]

10x )
Works on W2k3 32-bit. You may update your 'tested on' info ; )))

Existing methods to lock the desktop after auto logon just call the LockWorkStation function through rundll32.exe via some shortcut placed in Start Up or registry. That takes a while to lock depending on how bloated your Windows is and till then it just sits on the desktop. And Safe Mode doesn't get locked since the start up items don't run in Safe Mode. More importantly using rundll32.exe for these functions causes a stack corruption which will eventually crash the system or worse.

So I made a replacement shell (Windows starts lock.exe instead of Explorer) which locks first and then launches Explorer in the background. It also handles Safe Mode and Safe Mode with Command Prompt and detects and launches the x64 cmd.exe on an x64 system.

Auto Logon & Lock v1.0