1. Add the Built-in Administrator Account to the Login Screen
The built-in Administrator
account is intentionally hidden to keep out users who don't have
sufficient knowledge to understand the risks involved in using such an
account. Typically, the only way to get to it is by starting the
computer in Safe Mode. If you're an advanced user and want to be able to
get to that account from the login page, you just have to enable the
account. Here's how:
Log in to an account that has administrative privileges.
Click the Start button, right-click Computer, and choose Manage.
In the left column of the Computer Management tool that opens, click Local Users and Groups.
In the center column, double-click the Users folder.
Right-click the Administrator account and choose Properties.
Clear the check mark beside Account is Disabled and click OK.
Close the Computer Management window.
When you log out of
your current account, you'll see the Administrator account on the login
page. It will also appear there each time you start the computer.
2. Stop Entering Password on Lockout
If you leave the computer for a few minutes without logging out, you're taken to a lockout
screen that shows your user account information. If your user account
is password-protected, you need to enter your password to get back to
the desktop. This is to prevent other people from using your computer
while you're away. But it makes sense only in a work environment. In a
home environment, it may be overkill. You can reconfigure 7 so that you
don't have to reenter your password to get back to your desktop. Here
are the steps:
Click the Start button, type pow, and click Power Options.
In the left column, click Require a Password on Wakeup.
If
the options under Password Protection on Wakeup are disabled, click
Change Settings that Are Currently Unavailable. Then elevate your
privileges by clicking Continue or by entering the password for an
administrative account.
Choose Don't Require a Password.
3. About Windows CardSpace
Windows CardSpace
lets you store user account information for online services that support
the CardSpace feature. It's a means of creating a digital identity that
can be used instead of a username and password to log in to online
accounts that support the CardSpace feature.
CardSpace adds security to Web
relationships by encrypting data in your card before sending the
information to a Web site. You can also review cards from Web sites that
use them to get more information about a site before signing up for an
account.
CardSpace is still
relatively new, with a limited number of Web sites supporting it. The
idea of CardSpace is fairly simple, however. You can create one or more
digital cards, each with whatever information you want to provide to Web
sites with which you do business. For example, you might want cards
that include only your name and no further identifying information.
Other cards might include your street address and phone number.
When you set up an account
with an online site that supports CardSpace, you can send your card
rather than fill in blanks on that site's user form. After you've
established an account, you can submit your card whenever you need to
log in to the site.
You can choose from two kinds of cards to use:
Personal cards: These you create yourself and provide to online Web services as you see fit.
Managed cards: These are like membership cards provided to you by organizations and businesses that support the CardSpace identity system.
Use one of the following methods to access Windows CardSpace:
Click the Start button and choose Control Panel => User Accounts and Family Safety => Windows CardSpace.
Tap , type card and click Windows CardSpace.
If you're taken to a welcome
page, click OK to proceed. To create a personal card, click Add a Card
in the right column. Click Personal Card and fill in whatever blanks
you're comfortable with. You might want to start by creating a basic
card that contains your name, e-mail address, and perhaps a picture or
logo. You can create other cards with more information, if necessary,
for sites that you trust with that information.
You don't create managed cards
yourself. Instead, you set up an account with a service that uses
managed cards. When you receive such a card, you'll likely get
instructions on its use. But the basic procedure is to go into
CardSpace, click Add a Card, click Install a Managed Card, and then
import the card that the online service has sent you.
If
the CardSpace technology catches on, you'll be able to access your
cards right from your Web browser. When you go to log in to a site,
you'll see an option to log in the traditional way through a user
account and password, or by using CardSpace (or an InfoCard). Click the
option to use CardSpace, click the card you want to use, and you're
logged in.
4. Using Credential Manager
Credential Manager (Figure 1) enables you to manage your usernames and their associated passwords (collectively called credentials)
for servers, Web sites, and programs. These credentials are stored in
an electronic virtual vault. When you access a server, site, or program
that requests a password, Credential Manager can submit the credentials
for you so that you don't have to type them yourself. If your password
cache has dozens of sets of credentials in it, as mine does, you'll be
more than happy to put Credential Manager to work for you.
NOTE
Credential Manager can't
interact with every Web site that requests credentials. For example,
when you log in to your online banking site, the site probably displays a
form in which you enter your credentials. Credential Manager can't
store this type of forms-based credentials, but you can have Internet
Explorer remember the credentials for you.
Although you can add
credentials to your vault directly, you don't need to do so in most
cases. Instead, you can let Windows do it for you. To do so, navigate to
a server or other computer on your network, or to a Web server that
prompts you for credentials, as shown in Figure 2.
Enter the username and password in the Windows Security dialog box,
select Remember My Credentials, and click OK. Windows stores the
credentials in Credential Manager (Figure 3).
You can add credentials
to your vault yourself if you want to. For example, if you have lots of
credentials you use with multiple servers or sites, you might want to
prepopulate your credential vault so that you don't have to enter them
the next time you visit that resource.
To add credentials, open
the User Accounts and Family Safety item in the Control Panel and then
click Credential Manager. Click Add a Windows Credential and in the
resulting form, enter the following:
Internet or Network Address: Type the path to the resource. For example, enter \\fileserver\Docs to specify the Docs share on a server on the network named fileserver. Or, enter portal.mycompany.tld if your company intranet portal is located at https://portal.mycompany.tld.
Username: Enter the username you want to use to log on to the specified service.
Password: Enter the password associated with the username.
You can also add a
certificate resource, which associates a network resource with a
certificate that is already installed in the Personal certificate store
on your computer. In this case, verify that you have already installed
the certificate, click Add a Certificate-Based Credential, type the
resource URL, and click Select Certificate to select the certificate.
You can also choose to use a smart card certificate (a certificate
installed on a smart card that you insert in your computer).
The third type of
credential you can add is a generic credential, which are credentials
used by applications that perform authentication themselves rather than
rely on Windows to perform the authentication. As with a Windows
credential, you specify the URL, username, and password for a generic
credential.
You can specify a port number in the resource path, if needed. For example, if an application is connecting to a SQL Server at sql.mydomain.tld on port 1433, you would specify sql.mydomain.tld:1433 in the Internet or Network Address field in Credential Manager.
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