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The XP start-menu displays your name (or the logged on user) on top. This is very handy in case you get amnesia and don’t remember who you are. But, it will also reveal who’s logged on, which can be a bad thing if you forget to remove the [Ed] *ahem* seedy content, or other non-work related stuff you’re doing on your computer. If you work at a high security environment, or just don’t want people to see who’s logged onto a certain computer, then this tip might just save your day.

Remove Username from Start Menu in XP

First off: This requires hacking the registry, so please take a backup before you start and refer to this guide. That being said:

1. Open the registry editor.
2. In the left pane, navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer
3. In the right pane, right-click an empty space and select New | DWORD value
4. Name the new value NoUserNameInStartMenu
5. Set the value data to 1

Log off and log back on to apply the change. If you want to get the user name back, repeat the process and set the value data to 0.

About Thomas

Computer geek from the age of 7, which amounts to 30 years of computer experience. From the early days (when every computer company had their own OS) of DOS, Windows 1.0 through Seven...

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