Whenever you install a major upgrade or create a new user, the first time you sign in, you are greeted with the first sign-in animation. Here’s how to disable the welcome message should you no longer want to see it.
The first sign-in animation is a series of messages that display on the screen when signing in after a major update, version change, or for new user accounts. Messages include: “Hi,” “We’re setting things up for you,” “We’ve got some updates for your PC,” and “This might take several minutes.”
However, what’s the point in disabling the animation? Is signing in to a fresh account any faster when the animation is no longer enabled?
To find out if it is indeed faster, we went ahead and made a small sample size of 10 fresh users: Five signed in with the animation on and five signed in without the animation.
After signing in with the animation enabled five times, the average time Windows took to reach the opt-in prompt for services was 33.5 seconds. Signing in without the animation yielded an average setup time of 23.5 seconds. That’s a whole 10 seconds faster without the animation.
While this is a pretty small sample size—and specifically only for new users signing in for the first time—it seems that disabling the animation completely could save a lot of time for new users.
Home Users: Disable the First Sign-In Animation via the Registry
If you have Windows 10 Home, you’ll have to edit the Windows Registry to make these changes. You can also do it this way if you have Windows 10 Professional or Enterprise, but just feel more comfortable working in the Registry as opposed to Group Policy Editor. (If you have Pro or Enterprise, though, we recommend using the easier Group Policy Editor, as described in the next section.)
Standard warning: Registry Editor is a powerful tool and misusing it can render your system unstable or even inoperable. This is a pretty simple hack, and as long as you stick to the instructions, you shouldn’t have any problems. That said, if you’ve never worked with it before, consider reading about how to use the Registry Editor before you get started. And definitely back up the Registry (and your computer!) before making changes.
You should also make a System Restore point before continuing. Windows will probably do this automatically when you install the Anniversary Update, but it couldn’t hurt to make one manually—that way, if something goes wrong, you can always roll back.
Then, open the Registry Editor by pressing Windows+R on your keyboard, typing “regedit” into the box, and then pressing Enter.
Navigate to the following key in the left sidebar:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon
If you don’t see a “Winlogon” key (folder) below the CurrentVersion folder, right-click the CurrentVersion folder and select New > Key. Name it “Winlogon.”
You can now close the registry editor. You don’t have to sign out or restart your computer for the changes to take effect, but you will need to have a new user account waiting to sign in.
To undo your change and to continue to see the first sign-in animation, you can return here, locate the “EnableFirstLogonAnimation” value, and set it back to “1.”
Download Our One-Click Registry Hack
Rather than editing the registry yourself, you can download our Disable First Logon Animation registry hack. Just open the downloaded .zip file, double-click the “Disable First Logon Animation.reg” file, and agree to add the information to your registry. We’ve also included an “EnableFirstLogonAnimation.reg” if you’d like to re-enable it again.
These .reg files just change the same registry settings we outlined above. If you’d like to see what this or any other .reg file will do before you run it, you can right-click the file .reg and select “Edit” to open it in Notepad. You can easily make your own Registry hacks.
Pro and Enterprise Users: Disable the First Logon Animation via Group Policy
If you’re using Windows 10 Professional or Enterprise, the easiest way to disable the logon animation is by using the Local Group Policy Editor. It’s a pretty powerful tool, so if you’ve never used it before, it’s worth taking some time to learn what it can do. Also, if you’re on a company network, do everyone a favor and check with your admin first. If your work computer is part of a domain, it’s also likely that it’s part of a domain group policy that will supersede the local group policy, anyway.
You should also make a System Restore point before continuing. Windows will probably do this automatically when you install the Anniversary Update. Still, it couldn’t hurt to make one manually—that way, if something goes wrong, you can always roll back.
First, launch the group policy editor by pressing Windows+R, typing “gpedit.msc” into the box, and pressing the Enter key.
Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Logon.
Locate the “Show First Sign-In Animation” setting in the right pane and double-click on it.
Set the “Show First Sign-In Animation” option to “Disabled” and click “OK” to save your changes.
You can now close the group policy editor. All changes have been saved and will take effect immediately. There is no need to restart your PC before the animation is disabled.
To re-enable the animation, return here, double-click the “Show First Sign-In Animation” setting, and change it to “Not Configured” or “Enabled.”