How can I enable/disable the Ctrl-Alt-Del to enter logon information?

A. A. Windows NT 5.0 introduces the ability to remove the necessity of pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del, the Security Attention Sequence (SAS) to logon. By default on a workstation this is no longer needed however on a server it is still necessary but this can be configured with a single registry entry.

1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe)
2. Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
3. Double click on DisableCAD (create of type REG_DWORD if it does not exist)
4. Set to 1 if you don't want to have to press Ctrl-Alt-Del, and set to 0 if you do. Click OK
5. Close the registry editor
6. Reboot the machine

Disabling this feature does not decrease the security of Windows NT. To gain access to the computer, users are required to log on to Windows NT with a valid user name and password. The Windows NT logon process suspends all other user-mode processes to protect the logon process and is the only process that can create the access tokens used by the Windows NT security system.

This can also be set via a GUI on Windows 2000 Professional as follows:

1. Start the Users and Passwords control panel applet (Start - Settings - Control Panel - Users and Passwords)
2. Select the Advanced tab
3. Unselect "Require users to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete before logging on."
   Click here to view image
4. Click Apply then OK

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