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Editing msgina.dll, (windows 2000 login screen)

Started by Mr T 87 Jun 9, 2008 at 3:24 PM 6 replies 3.3k views

Original Post

Jun 9, 2008 at 3:24 PM

Howdy, I have a small query. I'm using windows 2000 and i'm trying to hide the logon dialogues. I have auto-logon enabled so these dialogues are unnecissary for my purpose. I have been following a guide over at: http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/26848/change-the-windows-logon-screen.html. I have created the msgina2.dll file and edited the registry and got it to load my custom msgina2.dll file. Using resource hacker I altered the 4 integers at the top of each dialogue which I read somewhere will hide the dialogue. This seems to all work fine and only a thin line comes up on screen instead of the dialogue but after about 5 seconds the computer restarts. It then just gets stuck in this restart loop. I'm guessing i'm simply editing the msgina.dll file incorrectly. Has anyone had any experience with any of this? Thanks in advance.

ukdeveloper

Jun 9, 2008 at 3:30 PM

May I ask why you want to do this? It seems a little bit strange, can't you just use Group Policy and remove the login screen?

Hacking system DLLs like that isn't usually recommended as a good idea, either.

Mr T 87

Jun 9, 2008 at 3:48 PM

I'm using windows 2000 as the os for an arcade machine i'm building. So i need to hide as much operating system as possible. I am open to alternative ways of hiding the logon screens if they're are any. Thanks for the reply.

d000hg

Jun 9, 2008 at 3:57 PM

I worked on a Windwos system where we provided a msgina.dll, but it only got told about security events... I don't think it could intercept them. Still, it didn't require any hacking, you just implemented required methods.

LessBread

Jun 9, 2008 at 5:05 PM

Aren't there easier ways of putting your computer into kiosk mode?

Mr T 87

Jun 9, 2008 at 5:09 PM

Unfortunatly I believe that shell is loaded after the logon since I have already changed the value of that registry key to launch my custom application. Hmm, still worth looking into though. Thanks :).

Mr T 87

Jun 10, 2008 at 5:02 PM

I found a way around it without editing the file. Their is a logon component which is mostly used for xpe based systems. The component is Minlogon.exe. I simply replaced the winlogon.exe file which displays the logon dialogues with the minlogon.exe file be renaming it. Now their are now dialogues. I don't think their is a concept of user levels with it though so be careful since it can be a security risk. It works for my current project however. Thanks for your replies =).

MrEvil

Jun 10, 2008 at 7:31 PM

Good to see you found a solution. I would like to say however, in case it comes in useful in the future, that it would probably have been pretty easy to write your own GINA. It's a pretty small task, especially if you don't plan to show any UI.

Of course, you could end up with a nice blue screen of death like this:
[BSOD: STOP 0xc0000142: {Application Error} - The application failed to initialize correctly. Click OK to terminate the application.]

[BSOD: STOP 0xc0000142: {Application Error} - The application failed to initialize correctly. Click OK to terminate the application.]

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