[System Info] Remove User Account From The Logon Screen in Windows 7

Introduction

Let's say you have more than one user account on your Windows 7 machine and each time you need to log on you have to click the icon of your account – You might see it very annoying especially if you are the only person who use the computer and for some reason those other accounts are not needed anymore.

Remove User Account

In the example below there are two user accounts in the system, Donald and Jeff:

You can delete the unused account but there is another way to handle it and in this article I will show you how to disappear the other account(s) from the logon screen without deleting them.

Warning:
This document contains instructions for editing the registry. If you make any error while editing the registry, you can potentially cause Windows to fail or be unable to boot, requiring you to reinstall Windows. Edit the registry at your own risk. Always back up the registry before making any changes. If you do not feel comfortable editing the registry, do not attempt these instructions. Instead, seek the help of a trained computer specialist.
Now we will remove Jeff from the logon screen and leave only Donald.
1. Press Start button + R to open run command dialog box. Type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor. You may be prompted with a UAC prompt, click "Yes".

2. Navigate to the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

3. Right click on the right pane and select New > Key.

4. Enter the value: SpecialAccounts.
5. Select SpecialAccounts that was just created and then right click on the right pane and select New > Key.

6. Enter the value: UserList.
7. After you followed the above steps, your scope of registry has to look like that:

8. On the left pane mark User List and then Right click on the right pane and select:
New  > DWORD (32-bit) Value

9. Set the value of the key to the user account name and click OK.

If you have more user accounts that you want to disappear from the logon screen, please repeat steps 8-9.
10. Exit the Registry Editor.
Now your logon screen will look like that:

In the future, in case you will need to retrieve the "missing" user (Jeff in this case) you just have to delete the key that was created in section 9 and after you log off, the account will be shown again in the logon screen. (See the first picture in the article).

In order to delete the registry key, open the registry editor again, browse to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList
Mark the key that contains the relevant user account, right click on it and choose Delete.

Conclusion

There are certain circumstances where a user account is no longer needed but deleting it entirely is not a viable option. In that case, simply removing the user from the logon screen is probably the better choice. In the above article we walked you through the few simple steps to carry this out. Hope you find it helpful, good luck!

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