Windows Tips – Display Previous Logon Information

For debugging purposes you may need to get information about the last login on a machine, so here’s a tip to show you that information in a very easy way.

You can use both Group Policy or Registry to achieve this:

Group Policy

• Open your GPO Editor (if local gpo just type gpedit.msc from “run…”)
• Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Componentes > Windows Logon Options
• On the right side double-click “Display information about previous logons during user logon”
• Now just select “Enabled” and than “Apply”
• Click OK to finish

Registry

• Open registry editor (type regedit from “run…”)
• Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
• On the right side create a new DWORD (32-bit) value
• Name it “DisplayLastLogonInfo”
• Double-click the DWORD you’ve just created and change the value from 0 to 1
• Close registry editor to finish

And you’re done!
For both cases, restart your machine to view the change in action.