Some Windows 10 updates remove registry values; not sure how widely
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/10/12
After watching an autologon system not logging on automatically over the past years, the pattern seems to be that at least major, and some less minor Windows updates remove autlogon parts of the registry.
I’m not sure where the boundary between “major” and “less minor” lies (though I suspect “cumulative updates” and larger), nor if more than these values are affected:
- key
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon"- value name
AutoAdminLogongets removed or becomes value0 - value
DefaultUserNamegets removed - value
DefaultPasswordgets removed
- value name
This means that now after each startup, I need to schedule a task that runs a script setting the values I need depending if a password is needed or not.
The script also needs credentials, so I need to figure out how to properly do that.
I still need to decide between PowerShell or batch file script, as I already have the batch file from How to turn on automatic logon in Windows and automatic logon in Windows 2003.
For my future reference, some more links on things that can get deleted:
- [WayBack] Windows Update deletes custom registry settings
- [WayBack] Windows 10 update deletes the registry Run command – Super User
- [WayBack] Windows 10 May Delete Your Programs Without Asking
- [WayBack] Don’t break Windows 10 by deleting SID, Microsoft warns – Naked Security
- [WayBack] Windows 10 KB4532693 Update Bug Hides User Data, Loads Wrong Profile
- [WayBack] why has the latest windows update moved all my files into another user – Microsoft Community
Hopefully these links will help me writing the scripts:
- [WayBack] Powershell command to create a schedule task to execute a batch file during bootup – Stack Overflow
- [WayBack] Powershell command to create a schedule task to execute a batch file during bootup – Stack Overflow
- [WayBack] How to Use a Batch File to Make PowerShell Scripts Easier to Run
For several reasons, mostly security-related, PowerShell scripts aren’t as easily portable and usable as batch scripts can be. However, we can bundle a batch script with our PowerShell scripts to work around these issues. Here, we’ll show you a few of those problem areas, and how to build a batch script to get around them.
- [WayBack] New-ScheduledTask
- [WayBack] How to Automate PowerShell Scripts with Task Scheduler
- [WayBack] run a batch script as differend user inside Powershell script – Stack Overflow
- [WayBack] Create Scheduled Tasks with Secure Passwords
- [Wayback] Working with Passwords, Secure Strings and Credentials in Windows PowerShell – TechNet Articles – United States (English) – TechNet Wiki
- [WayBack] Microsoft PowerShell Basics Guide
–jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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