[basketofkittens]

Ok, so this is something I've known about for a good few years, but I figure maybe someone (j0k3r?) can give me a straight answer.

You know when you have the standard login screen for windows xp, the one where you need to type in the username and password, and it's always themed with that standard windows theme? Well, this bug or whatever lets you change that theme to whatever you want. It might let you change something else too, but this is what I've used it for.

Ok so here's the steps: Go to the regkey HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\SCRNSAVE.EXE and change "logon.scr" to "cmd.exe". Also, change the ScreenSaveTimeOut key to something like 5. Now log out and wait for the command window to show up. Type "mmc". In the Management Console, click File > Open and then go up one level. Now right click any of the folders you see, and hit "Search...". This is where the freaky shit starts happening. The computer will login to an account called SYSTEM. From here you can change themes, settings, etc. Certain items in the control panel won't work, but I can't remember which exactly. After you turn off the command window it'll boot you back to the login screen, and keep whatever theme settings you've set.

Can anyone shed some light on this "SYSTEM" user? Is this any kind of security flaw that Microsoft should know about? I discovered this pre-SP1 when I was fucking around one day, so it was a while ago, and it still works in SP2. Anyone?

[SoulAssassin]

When I wake up I'll try to find a good definition but basically the System account allows certain processes to run, whether or not they have the ability to logon locally is up to you. A good example (from my perspective) is allowing Backup Exec to run...the services require an account to run but they do require this account to be logged on. So when the scheduled time comes to run, it has an account with specified permissions to do the scheduled job. Allowing Backup Exec to use an administrator account is *technically* a security risk, as is any process, but it does make the job easier.