Automatically+Logging+Into+Windows+7+at+Startup

Automatically Logging Into Windows 7 at Startup In an effort to keep your computer secure and provide options if a profile experiences problems, the Windows 7 operating system normally requires you to log into a specific account when you start your computer. Unfortunately, this adds an unnecessary step that increases the start-up time if you do not use a password with your account – or if you frequently only sign into one single account. To avoid going through the process of clicking the account’s icon every time you turn on your computer, Windows 7 offers the ability to automatically log into an account during the start-up process. The simplest method of accessing this feature is to open the “Start” menu and type the phrase “netplwiz” in the search box. Click the “netplwiz” icon at the top of the search results field to open the **“User Accounts”** window. Instead of using the Windows 7 search feature, you can also access the “User Accounts” window through the “Run” command. To open the “Run” feature, click the Windows Key and “R” button at the same time (the Windows Key is positioned at the lower-left corner of your keyboard, in-between the “Alt” and Ctrl keys). Type the phrase “**Control Userpasswords2**” into the “Run” box and Click “Enter” to access the “User Accounts” window. Navigate to the “Users” tab in the window and locate the name of the account you want to automatically access when you start Windows 7. Click the account name so the line is highlighted then remove the tick/check mark from the box at the top of the window labelled :- “**User must enter a user name and password to use this computer**.” After removing the tick/check mark, all other account names will automatically be greyed out so they cannot be selected. Click the “Apply” button at the bottom of the screen to confirm your selection. After clicking “Apply”, a new box will appear on the screen asking you to enter the password for the account you selected. Type your password into both of the empty text boxes and then click the “OK” button. If you do not use a password for the selected account, instead simply leave both password boxes empty and click “OK.” After making the change your computer will automatically log into the selected account on start-up, and you will no longer have to click the account’s icon. If you later want to turn this, feature off and manually choose an account at start-up, return to the “User Accounts” window and click the “User must enter a user name and password to use this computer” tick/check box. Using this feature does not completely prevent you from accessing your other accounts, however. To switch to a different account after the operating system has already loaded, open the “Start” menu and click the arrow icon positioned to the right of the “Shut Down” button. Select the “Switch Users” option and then click the icon for the account you want to access. Instead of using the “Shut Down” button, it is also possible to switch between user accounts by pressing the “Ctrl”, “Alt”, and “Delete” keys simultaneously. After the new menu appears on the screen, click the “Switch Users” button and choose the account you need to open.