Tuesday, January 20, 2009

XP Logon Banner

Windows XP operating systems allow a login with a username
and password before the system can be used. The following method causes a
dialog box with the warning banner and an OK button to be displayed before the
system displays the login dialog box on Windows 95/98/ME and after pressing
Ctrl-Alt-Del on Windows XP.

To create a login banner on these Windows systems you must add two
keys to the Windows registry. There are two ways to edit the registry. One is
to edit it directly; the second is to create a .reg file containing the
required changes and to execute the file with regedit.

The following registry key and values set the local login banner.

Key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon

Values:
LegalNoticeCaption = "The caption text."
LegalNoticeText = "The body of the banner."

Starting with Windows 2000, there is a second registry key and values associated
with Login banners. These keys are set with active directory. If these active
directory local policy values are defined, they take precedence over the local
settings in the WinLogon key above.

Key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\system

Values:
LegalNoticeCaption = "The local policy caption text."
LegalNoticeText = "The local policy body of the banner."

Perform these steps to create a login banner on Windows systems.


This banner appears as a dialog box just before the system displays the login
dialog box.