How to delay windows login process till an even from a windows service

Question

The requirement is , autologin has to be configured in WINDOWS7 machine, but this autologin should be in wait (ie, delayed) till another windows service signals to continue the autologin.

I used a custom credential provider, in which it which waits for a mutex/event set by another windows service, and it performs autologin after the signal.

In the custom credential provider, i had implemented the interface "GetCredentialCount()", where a wait is introduced (which will be released by the another windows service). However this solution works partly, when the delay introduced by the service is few minutes (<3 minutes), but if the delay is more i get the custom credential provider screen

1. how to introduce a wait/delay in windows autologin process (the wait has to be released by a windows service after a predetermined time )?
2. how to use credential provider to achieve this functionality?

Answer 1

Here is an idea for you. Implement a credential filter. When machine first starts up filter all other credential providers except one. That provider should just fire credential filter event once in a while to make sure logonui doesn't reset itself to the initial screen as it happens in your case. When you receive the event from your service your filter should switch to another provider that would just log the desired user in.

Hope I was clear in the explanation.