Windows 10 text-based logonUI

[razvangabriel82]

Hey guys, I did an experiment where I successfully disabled DWM on Windows 10 20H1.
If anyone wants to see it, it is right here:
However, what I want to show is a glimpse of what I found during this test, which is a CMD-based logonUI, which I think is very interesting...

This is the "login screen"

The security options



So, what gives? Is this actually a feature (like an emergency logon system) or just a bug?

[Meow]

It’s neither of those. It’s a feature that Windows server core uses and that can be enabled via registry

[VictorMX2307]

I think its a bug because, if really Windows 10 would had the 'emergency logon system' i think should be more simple or something like that.

[AlphaBeta]

This is implemented in consolelogon.dll. Aside from being used in Server Core it's also used on other editions as a fallback when the regular logon screen can't be used.

[razvangabriel82]

This is implemented in consolelogon.dll. Aside from being used in Server Core it's also used on other editions as a fallback when the regular logon screen can't be used.

This makes sense, as I haven't touched the registry...

[Meow]

This is implemented in consolelogon.dll. Aside from being used in Server Core it's also used on other editions as a fallback when the regular logon screen can't be used.

This makes sense, as I haven't touched the registry...

Check if Windows.UI.Logon.dll exists. If not, then that’s what caused the console screen. As AlphaBeta said, it’s a fallback when the regular logon screen can’t be used.
Oh and it doesn’t use dwm for anything so that’s why it’s used there.

[razvangabriel82]

This is implemented in consolelogon.dll. Aside from being used in Server Core it's also used on other editions as a fallback when the regular logon screen can't be used.

This makes sense, as I haven't touched the registry...

Check if Windows.UI.Logon.dll exists. If not, then that’s what caused the console screen. As AlphaBeta said, it’s a fallback when the regular logon screen can’t be used.
Oh and it doesn’t use dwm for anything so that’s why it’s used there.

This might be it, because I deleted this dll, otherwise Windows would get stuck on a boot loop... But nonetheless, interesting feature!

[Courage]

9903 is the first build to introduce ConsoleLogon.dll, and therefore the first build to have this feature.



In order to enable this feature in 9903, the following two DWORD values must exist and have their values set to 1:

[LeonardoIannelliRETRIEVES]

Hey guys, I did an experiment where I successfully disabled DWM on Windows 10 20H1.
[snip]
So, what gives? Is this actually a feature (like an emergency logon system) or just a bug?

How did you get DWM disabled? I wanna try it out in a VM.

[razvangabriel82]

First of all, I replaced DWM.exe with rundll32.exe (but it still was named DWM.exe, otherwise it would bsod), then I deleted sihost.exe and Windows.UI.Logon.dll (which apparently also causes the CMD-based logonUI). And that's pretty much it (as far as I can remember)...

[EFI Shell]

Can LogonUI.EXE be set as GUI in Windows Server Core versions?

[Meow]

Can LogonUI.EXE be set as GUI in Windows Server Core versions?

As the logon screen? It already is.

[Pikavolt321]

As the logon screen? It already is.

Actually, in Server Core, it defaults to the text-based Logon UI (tested on Hyper-V Server 2016 build 14393 - essentially the RTM version of WS2016 in Server Core mode) on Version 1607.

[Meow]

As the logon screen? It already is.

Actually, in Server Core, it defaults to the text-based Logon UI (tested on Hyper-V Server 2016 build 14393 - essentially the RTM version of WS2016 in Server Core mode).

I mean that LogonUI.exe is the application that is hosting the text based logon.