In my previous post I’ve covered how to enable automatic login in Windows 8/7/Vista/XP, by using the command netplwiz or control userpasswords2. However, that option is disabled when your computer is joined to a domain. Fortunately, you can still set up Windows to auto login to your domain account using a registry trick.

How to Set up Windows to Auto Login to Domain Account?

1. Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run box. Type regedit and hit Enter.
2. When the Registry Editor opens, navigate to the following registry location:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
3. In the right pane, you need to modify or create each of these registry entries: DefaultUserName, DefaultPassword, DefaultDomainName, AutoAdminLogon. If any of these keys are missing, create a new String Value (REG_SZ).
4. Double-click the DefaultUserName entry, type the user name to log on with, and then click OK.
5. Double-click the DefaultPassword entry, type the password for the user account under the value data box, and then click OK.
6. Double-click on DefaultDomainName, and specify the domain name of the user account. If it’s local user, specify local host name.
7. Double-click the AutoAdminLogon entry, set AutoAdminLogon to 1 to enable the auto logon. If AutoLogonCount or AutoLogonChecked exists, delete it.

   

Once those four options are created and altered, you’re good to reboot and from now on every time you start Windows it will automatically login to your specified domain account! Again, if for some reason the auto-logon doesn’t work, go back into the registry and double-check the four entries in that folder to make sure nothing’s out of place.