Recently we posted a tutorial for removing "Windows Branding Logo" and "Ease of Access" (Accessibility) Button from Windows Vista and 7 Login Screens:
Today in this tutorial, we'll tell you how to remove "Shutdown" button from the Login screen!

Here we start the tutorial:
1. First take ownership of "%windir%\System32\authui.dll" file and then open it in Resource Hacker.
Note: here %windir% represents "Windows" directory which can be found in the system drive where Windows is installed. In most of the cases its C:\Windows.
2. Now press "Ctrl+F" keys or select "Find Text" option from "View" menu.
3. Type Shutdown in Find what text box. Click on "Find Next" button and it'll go to following lines:
<element id="atom(ShutDownFrame)" layout="flowlayout()">
<button id="atom(ShutDown)" accname="resstr(12128)" tooltip="true"/>
<button id="atom(ShutDownOptions)" accname="resstr(12131)" accdesc="resstr(12131)" tooltip="true" shortcut="115"/>
4. Replace the last 2 lines of code with following:
<element id="atom(ShutDownFrame)" layout="flowlayout()">
<button id="atom(ShutDown)" accname="resstr(12128)" tooltip="true" layoutpos="none"/>
<button id="atom(ShutDownOptions)" accname="resstr(12131)" accdesc="resstr(12131)" tooltip="true" shortcut="115" layoutpos="none"/>
Guess what? We are only adding an extra string layoutpos="none" at the end of each line.
5. That's it, click on "Compile Script" button.
6. Now save the file at some other location, for example in D: drive.
7. Rename original "authui.dll" file present in "System32" folder to "authui_backup.dll".
8. Now copy your new modified "authui.dll" file to "System32" folder.
9. Restart your system and after restart Windows will start using your new modified file and you'll not see the "Shutdown" button on login screen.
PS: Windows Vista "authui.dll" file contains only a single instance of (ShutDown) string, so you'll need to replace it only once using Step 3 and 4 but Windows 7 contains 3 instances of this string, so you'll need to change all the 3 instances in the file.
NOTE: If you want to use a free tool to customize Windows 7 login screen, check following list:
Ultimate Collection of the Best Free Tools to Customize Windows 7 Login Screen
This article was posted by VG in following section: Resource Hacker, Windows 7, Windows Vista.
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