How to disable Fast User Switching in Windows Vista

Copyright © 2008 Ramesh Srinivasan
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Disabling Fast User Switching in Windows Vista

Click Start, type gpedit.msc and press Enter
Go to the following location:

Local Computer Policy | Administrative Templates | System | Logon

Set Hide entry points for Fast User Switching to Enabled
Quit the Group Policy Editor.

By enabling the policy, Administrators hide the Switch user button in the Logon UI, the Start menu and the Task Manager. Note that the Group Policy Editor does not exist in certain editions of Windows Vista. Alternately, you can configure the setting via the registry.

Registry edit

Click Start, type regedit.exe and press Enter
Navigate to the following branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ System

Create a DWORD (32-bit) Value named HideFastUserSwitching
Set the Value data for HideFastUserSwitching to 1
Quit the Registry Editor.

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10 Responses to "How to disable Fast User Switching in Windows Vista"

Phil Craig

said this on 17 Feb 2007 10:05:50 PM PST

Excellent information thankyou, solved the problem I was having.

(Reply to this comment)

Joke Jong

said this on 12 Jun 2007 7:24:26 AM PST

This is a clearcut and excellent article.

(Reply to this comment)

Tony

said this on 03 Sep 2007 10:24:12 AM PST

I can get it to work.

(Reply to this comment)

Dallas Boychuk

said this on 10 Sep 2007 9:35:27 AM PST

Can't seem to get this to work, tried both methods in windows vista business

(Reply to this comment)

Everett

said this on 02 Nov 2007 2:59:36 AM PST

Now were talking,,had steve sinchack book hack win vista. said same as first option but didnt work reg wrkd teh!

(Reply to this comment)

an unknown user

said this on 25 Nov 2007 7:55:58 PM PST

it's impossible to remove the option from welcome/start screen,for it's convenient to user to logon.

(Reply to this comment)

batmax

said this on 20 Dec 2007 7:57:50 PM PST

I'm sorry, but gpedit.msc did'nt help me in this case (Vista Business with "admin" rights). After I've changed these settings mentioned in the article, nothing changed. In the system registry an appropriate parameter HideFastUserSwitching was set as described in the article, too. What's wrong ???

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