{"id":239,"date":"2011-06-04T02:07:44","date_gmt":"2011-06-04T08:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bdragon.com\/lair\/?p=239"},"modified":"2011-06-04T02:11:02","modified_gmt":"2011-06-04T08:11:02","slug":"windows-7-log-on-screen-show-your-user-profile-instead-of-fingerprint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bdragon.com\/lair\/2011\/06\/windows-7-log-on-screen-show-your-user-profile-instead-of-fingerprint\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows 7 Log On Screen: Show Your User Profile Instead Of “Fingerprint”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I recently got a nice new HP laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium pre-installed. It also has a fingerprint reader which can be used to sign in to Windows – nifty! So, I set up and started using the fingerprint reader as my login method. However, I noticed that this caused the Windows login screen to always show a “fingerprint” image\/icon instead of my personal profile icon (since the fingerprint method was always the “last used” login method), and that just bothered me because why bother to set up a user icon if you’re almost never going to see it?!<\/p>\n

\"Windows<\/a><\/p>\n

So, I started trying to figure out how to get my user profile icon to show instead of this blah fingerprint. First I tried looking through HP’s “SimplePass” (AuthenTec) program which is what comes pre-installed for managing and using the biometric fingerprint information. I eventually found there was a place where you could set a “profile picture” in the SimplePass application. “This must be it!<\/em>” I thought. However, I found that setting the profile picture in SimplePass does not replace the fingerprint on the logon screen – bummer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Then I went down the road of finding out where that fingerprint icon was stored. “I might be able to replace it with a resource editor<\/em>“, I thought, though that can be tricky with Windows file protection. I eventually found that the fingerprint icon is stored in a Windows 7 dll called “BioCredProv.dll”. I spent quite some time trying to figure out how to replace the fingerprint icon within that dll with my own profile image (using various resource editors), but was not<\/strong> successful with this.<\/p>\n

Eventually, something else struck me. I realized that when my profile username\/image was showing on the login screen, I was still able to scan my fingerprint over the reader and it would log me in. What if I could always make “my” username\/profile image show as the default on the login screen no matter what?? Then I would have my profile image back and I could still log in with the fingerprint reader.<\/p>\n

I suppose the method that I found to accomplish this will only work if you are able to log in with a fingerprint swipe while your default username\/profile is showing on the login screen (maybe this is common or standard?). Setting this up also involves making changes to the Windows registry, so if you’re not comfortable with that then don’t attempt. Standard disclaimer: I’m not responsible for any damage you do to your system by attempting these changes \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

After investigation and testing, I found the registry item “LogonUI” under HKEY LOCAL MACHINE:<\/p>\n

HKLM\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Authentication\\LogonUI
\n<\/code><\/p>\n

This has a key called “LastLoggedOnProvider” with a long GUID string as its value. You can find the GUID strings for different “Credential Providers” in the Credential Providers key right above the LogonUI key. With some testing (logging in using just the fingerprint and logging in using the password), I was able to confirm my password provider GUID which was {6F45DC1E-5384-457A-BC13-2CD81B0D28ED} I think this GUID may be the same for other systems as well? But I’m unsure.<\/p>\n

I also had to account for the “LastLoggedOnProvider” registry key under:<\/p>\n

HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Authentication\\LogonUI\\SessionData\\1<\/code><\/p>\n

As well as the “LoggedOnUsername” in this “SessionData” key (in my case “.\\\\bdragon”).<\/p>\n

So, I wrote up a registry file (.reg) with the following content:<\/p>\n

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00<\/code><\/p>\n

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Authentication\\LogonUI]
\n\"LastLoggedOnProvider\"=\"{6F45DC1E-5384-457A-BC13-2CD81B0D28ED}\"<\/code><\/p>\n

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Authentication\\LogonUI\\SessionData\\1]
\n\"LoggedOnUsername\"=\".\\\\bdragon\"
\n\"LastLoggedOnProvider\"=\"{6F45DC1E-5384-457A-BC13-2CD81B0D28ED}\"
\n<\/code><\/p>\n

Then I created a shortcut to load this registry file using the import option of reg.exe (“reg import”)”:<\/p>\n

Target:
\n C:\\Windows\\System32\\reg.exe import SetLogonProvider.reg<\/code><\/p>\n

Start in:
\n C:\\Users\\bdragon\\Documents\\SCRIPTS\\SetLogonProvider<\/code><\/p>\n

Run: Minimized<\/code><\/p>\n

I added this shortcut to the startup folder (I do have UAC (user account control) turned off, so unsure of what types of prompts this would cause with it turned on)… and it seems to have done the trick nicely! I get my lovely actual profile pic when rebooting or locking the system, and I can still scan my finger and log in quickly that way!<\/p>\n

\"Windows<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently got a nice new HP laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium pre-installed. It also has a fingerprint reader which can be used to sign in to Windows – nifty! So, I set up and started using the fingerprint reader as my login method. However, I noticed that this caused the Windows login screen …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[158,154,149,157,152,151,153,150,156,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-computer-stuff","7":"tag-avatar","8":"tag-biometric","9":"tag-fingeprint","10":"tag-hp","11":"tag-log-on","12":"tag-logon","13":"tag-picture","14":"tag-profile","15":"tag-simplepass","16":"tag-windows-7","17":"anons"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peSL2o-3R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bdragon.com\/lair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bdragon.com\/lair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bdragon.com\/lair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bdragon.com\/lair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bdragon.com\/lair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bdragon.com\/lair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bdragon.com\/lair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bdragon.com\/lair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bdragon.com\/lair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}