Hidden account/Hidden desktop

A student came to me the other day showing me a software called Hidden Desktop. It come in with the description :

So I showed him a tip which I'll share with you here.

I went to control panel>user account and made a new account - although you could use an existing one.
I then went to Start>Run>regedit and navigated to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList
In the right pane I made a new DWORD using the name of the account that I'd just made leaving the value 0
Now hopefully you've guessed it this user account is now hidden from User account in control panel and hidden from the logon screen.
Navigating back to the above registry key and changing the DWORD value to 1 will make the user account visable.
To access the hidden account from the logon screen you tap in Ctrl>Alt>Del twice and enter the credentials.
The acount would now be active but still hidden from other user accounts.

The benefits of a hidden desktop escapes me personally but the long and the short of it was a saving of $29.95

 

Would malware use this to setup shop on a system?

Would someone use this to write their biography, not wanting it to be seen or erased accidentally?

Isn't that where the LUA goes?

 

I use that same trick in a slightly different way.

Somewhere I read a suggestion to rename the administrator account and I figured to rename that account to myself. But then I was not visible on the welcome screen. I modified the same key to make my account (renamed administrator) visible.
I think that hackers look for the administrator account with obvious passwords, when they try to connect remotely.

Anyway, it's a well known tip from Meriadoc, it's the same key combination that pops up a classic login dialog, which you can use to login as administrator (except on Windows XP Home)

Oh, and of course documents are readable in c:\documents and settings\<hidden account name>, unless you take extra steps to prevent access.

 

Indeed.

 

That's the sort of playing or variation on a theme I've done with this.