Monday, January 4, 2010

Remove the irritating Ease of Access Button from Windows 7 Logon Screen




There are many many ways of disabling the Ease of Access Button from the Logon Screen and I won't go into posting links to sites with all those applications that disable it but give you a message if you click it. I have to successful ways of dealing with the button, Disable it where its pretty much useless or a way that I came up with to completely remove it from the screen ( yes thats right, no matter what everyone says you can remove it).

First we'll disable it

Goto Start Menu - Run - CMD and click OK. If you can't run a Command Prompt, goto
Start Menu - All Programs - Accessories and Right-Click Command Prompt and Run as Administrator. Type or paste the following code into the Command Window
cacls %windir%\system32\utilman.exe /C /D Everyone and hit Enter
You will be prompted with a Y/N just type yes and hit Enter and close the Command Prompt




To enable it back open your Command Prompt and Type or Paste the following code into it hit Enter
cacls %windir%system32\utilman.exe /E /G "Everyone":R




The next option is to Remove the Button from the Logon Screen Completely and will require a little understanding of editing a dll file. goto
My Computer\C:\Windows\System32 and locate the file Authui.dll .First Right-Click and make a copy and place it in a secure place in case you change your mind. Open the dll in a resurce editor ( I use PE Explorer which can be found here http://www.heaventools.com/ ). Locate the folder UIFILE and in this folder you will see 4 files, 3 xaml files and 1 textfile. We will be editing the 3 xaml files. Double-Click the file named 12400 and scroll down till you come across the following code






delete everything following that code which will be 46 lines of code till you reach






stop at the line above that. Click save and open the next 2 files 12401 and 12402
Optionally you can edit the first one Right-Click Select all and copy, click save and open the other 2 Right-Click Select all and paste. These 3 files are identical. Save all 3 and Save changes to the file. Logoff and wala nomore Ease of Access Button




Screenshot of my Laptop without the Button
You can also download the authui.dll file I edited to do this without you having to here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7E7UXBE9

12 comments:

  1. Thanks a lot, it worked for me (Windows 7 Professional), although i had to:

    -take ownership of the .dll file

    -reboot in safe mode and rename original file (wasn't able do delete it)

    -edit the .dll with PE Explorer ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Uhm, i would also like to remove the keyboard input language button, but i don't know how. I only have one layout/language installed, Italian, but on welcome screen there's still a button to select Italian or English (US).

    Any idea? :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. or search for line
    ================================================
    id="atom(Accessibility)" tooltip="true" layoutpos="Left"/>

    and replace layoutpos="Left" it with this
    ================================================
    layoutpos="none"

    for those who are using restorator its line 89

    and more infos on editing logon uifile
    http://www.joejoe.org/forum/topic/20801-windows-7-logon-editing/

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What an useful and amazing tool, it's better to change the logon screen by yourself with the style that you prefer, this operating system has good quality, the same case as the kamagra.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Attempted to use the cmd prompt option. Ran as administrator and received access denied?
    Suggestion?
    Thanks Mike

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm having this problem too, please respond if you have figured it out,
      Thanks

      Delete
  7. Tried this, and it crashed Windows. I'm using Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit, and when I replaced the file and rebooted, I got a blank black screen where the login screen is supposed to be. Couldn't CTRL+ALT+DEL or CTRL+SHIFT+ESC either. I had to boot up in repair mode and do a system restore just to get my PC to start up again.

    -IMP ;) :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey nice post It's really a nice and useful piece of info. thank you for share this interest post.

      best hotels honolulu

      Delete
    2. Same as what happened to my laptop, what I did was restore the original backup authui.dll file that I had "for the rainy days", I didn't expect the rainy days would come so early. The Ease of access button is still there although not working anymore.

      Delete
  8. For those of you who do not wish to risk bricking their system, there is a utility that turns the Ease of Access button off so if someone clicks on it, it says "Ease of Access has been disabled by the Administrator." No hacking involved. Download, install, and run. Done.

    http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-easily-disable-ease-of-access-button-in-windows-7-logon-screen/

    ReplyDelete
  9. The download link is broken

    ReplyDelete