Autologon with Windows
Although it is not best practice to have a server set to Autologin with an id after reboot, it is sometimes a needed option for certain applications.
Autologon enables you to easily configure Windows’ built-in Autologon mechanism. Instead of waiting for a user to enter their name and password, Windows uses the credentials you enter with Autologon, which are encrypted in the Registry, to log on the specified user automatically.
Autologon is available from Windows Sysinternal Tools. You can download it from here.
- Autologon is easy enough to use. Just run autologon.exe, fill in the dialog, and hit Enable. To turn off Autologon, hit Disable. Also, if the shift key is held down before the system performs an Autologon, the Autologon will be disabled for that logon. You can also pass the username, domain and password as command-line arguments: Autologon user domain password.
Reboot the server and it should login as expected.
If you don’t want to keep your password in plain text in registry (by using Windows internal autologon feature) look at Logonexpert tool. It keeps logon credentials AES 256bit encrypted.