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How to Enable a Warning Message During Windows Logon Welcome

Article ID: 315232 - View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q315232

For a Microsoft Windows 2000 version of this article, see 101063

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/101063/EN-US/ )

SUMMARY

This article describes how to add a warning message to be displayed when a user logs on to the computer.

Some users might interpret the "Welcome" logon dialog box as an invitation to breach system security. Although you cannot change the "Welcome" caption in the box, you can display a warning message box.

MORE INFORMATION

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ )

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

To enable display of a warning message, make the following changes in the registry:

Start Registry Editor (Regedit).
Locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree, and then go to the following key:
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Add or modify the following values:

   Name                 Data Type   Value
   -----------------------------------------------
   LegalNoticeCaption   REG_SZ      Dialog Caption
   LegalNoticeText      REG_SZ      Dialog Message

For example, the "LegalNoticeCaption" can be "Important Notice:" and the "LegalNoticeText" can be "No unauthorized access is allowed".

The user sees this dialog box after the user presses CTRL+ALT+DEL and before the user sees the logon dialog box. The user can click OK in the message box and log on normally. Quit Registry Editor.