Add a Custom Message (Logon Banner) to the Windows 11 and 10 Sign-in Screen: Every Method

To show a custom message before sign-in on Windows 11 or 10, often called a logon banner or legal notice, set two security policies: Interactive logon: Message title for users attempting to log on and Interactive logon: Message text for users attempting to log on. On Pro, Enterprise and Education, open Local Security Policy (secpol.msc), go to Local Policies, Security Options, and fill in both. On Home, or from a script, set the registry values legalnoticecaption and legalnoticetext under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System. In a domain, set the same policies in a Group Policy Object. The message appears after a restart or sign-out, before the sign-in screen, and the user must select OK to continue. To remove it, clear both values.

Ethan's small accounting firm needed a sign-in warning on every office PC for a client audit: a short notice that the computers are for authorized business use and may be monitored. Ethan also wanted something friendlier on his own laptop: if it was ever lost, whoever turned it on should see who to call. Jake set the office banner once in a Group Policy Object so all eight PCs got it at the next restart, wrote the laptop message directly in the registry since it runs Windows 11 Home, and showed Ethan how to remove either in a minute. This page covers every way to add, edit and remove a Windows sign-in message, what to write, how it affects automatic sign-in and Remote Desktop, and the fixes when it does not appear.

What a Windows logon banner is, and when to use one

A logon banner is a message box that Windows shows before the sign-in screen. It has a title and a body of text, and a single OK button. Nobody can sign in until someone selects OK, which is the point: the person at the keyboard has seen the message before they enter a password. Microsoft calls it a legal notice in the registry, and security policies call it the message for users attempting to log on.

Organizations use banners mostly for legal and security reasons. A typical banner states that the system is for authorized use only, that activity may be monitored and recorded, and that unauthorized use may lead to discipline or prosecution. Security standards for governments and regulated industries commonly require such a notice; the US federal control for this is known as system use notification, and widely used security benchmarks recommend configuring both banner policies. Lawyers like banners because they remove any argument that a user did not know the rules.

There are friendlier uses too. A family PC can greet children with a reminder about screen time, a shared PC in a club or library can show basic house rules, and a laptop can carry contact details for anyone who finds it. Ethan's lost-laptop notice reads: "If found, please call Ethan at the number on the back of this laptop. Reward offered." Because it appears before sign-in, an honest finder sees it the moment they open the lid and press a key.

What a banner cannot do is show a message after sign-in, on the desktop, or on the lock screen while the PC is merely locked. It is shown at sign-in time, after a restart or sign-out. For messages on the desktop, a scheduled task or a script is the tool, covered near the end of this page.

Which method should you use?

Every method below sets the same two values, so the banner looks identical whichever you choose. The choice comes down to your Windows edition and how many PCs you manage.

For a single PC, use secpol.msc if you have it and the registry if you do not. For two to five standalone PCs, a short script saves time and typing errors. Beyond that, central management is worth it, because it also lets you change the wording everywhere at once when the lawyers revise it, which in Ethan's experience happens about once a year.

Add a sign-in message with Local Security Policy (Pro, Enterprise, Education)

1. Sign in with an administrator account.
2. Press Windows + R, type secpol.msc and press Enter. Local Security Policy opens.
3. In the left pane, expand Local Policies and select Security Options.
4. In the right pane, double-click Interactive logon: Message title for users attempting to log on. Type the title, for example Authorized use only, and select OK.
5. Double-click Interactive logon: Message text for users attempting to log on. Type the message and select OK.
6. Restart the PC, or sign out, to see the message.

The policy names are long, and the list is sorted alphabetically, so the two banner policies sit together among the other Interactive logon settings. If you cannot find them, make sure you are in Security Options, not User Rights Assignment, which is the other common destination in Local Security Policy; our guide to the shutdown permission uses that other section and shows the layout.

Both fields matter. If you fill in only the text and leave the title empty, many Windows versions still show the message, but some show nothing, so always set both. A short title such as Notice, Warning or Welcome works best, because the title appears in bold above the text and a long title gets cut off. The text box accepts several lines; press Enter for a new paragraph, and keep the overall message short enough to read in a few seconds.

The same steps work in the Local Group Policy Editor, gpedit.msc, under Computer Configuration, Windows Settings, Security Settings, Local Policies, Security Options. Both tools edit the same settings, so use whichever you prefer.

Changes to these policies take effect at the next sign-in; you do not need to run any update command on a standalone PC, although a restart is the reliable way to see the result. If the two policies show as grayed out and cannot be edited, a domain policy is already defining them, and only your IT team can change the wording.

Add a sign-in message with the registry (all editions, including Home)

Windows 11 Home and Windows 10 Home do not include Local Security Policy, but the banner works on every edition because it is just two registry values. Back up the registry or create a restore point first.

1. Press Windows + R, type regedit and press Enter, and approve the prompt.
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System. You can paste the path into the address bar at the top of Registry Editor.
3. Double-click legalnoticecaption and type the title. If it does not exist, right-click an empty area, choose New, String Value, and name it legalnoticecaption.
4. Double-click legalnoticetext and type the message. Create it as a String Value the same way if it is missing.
5. Close Registry Editor and restart.

The registry route has one limitation: a plain String Value holds the message on one line, and the Edit String box does not let you press Enter for new lines. For a multi-line message on Home, either keep it to one paragraph, or create legalnoticetext as a Multi-String Value, which does accept several lines; Windows shows each line on its own. Ethan's lost-laptop notice is a single line and looks fine.

From an administrator Command Prompt, the same change is two commands, which is handy for setting several home PCs quickly:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" /v legalnoticecaption /t REG_SZ /d "Lost laptop" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" /v legalnoticetext /t REG_SZ /d "If found, please call the number on the back of this laptop. Thank you." /f

Older guides mention the values LegalNoticeCaption and LegalNoticeText under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. That older location still exists for compatibility, but the Policies\System location above is the one the security policies write to, and it takes priority. If you find a banner you did not set, check both places.

Set the banner with PowerShell

PowerShell is tidier than reg add for scripts, especially for multi-line messages. Run PowerShell as administrator and use:

$key = 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System'
Set-ItemProperty -Path $key -Name legalnoticecaption -Value 'Authorized use only'
Set-ItemProperty -Path $key -Name legalnoticetext -Value 'This computer is for authorized business use. Activity may be monitored.'

To read back what is set, run Get-ItemProperty -Path $key | Select-Object legalnoticecaption, legalnoticetext. To clear the banner, set both values to an empty string with the same Set-ItemProperty commands and -Value ''. Saved as a .ps1 file, the script can be run on each standalone PC, or copied to a USB drive and run from there. Ethan's family PCs at home got their friendly banner this way in under a minute each.

Set the banner on many PCs with Group Policy

In an Active Directory domain, set the banner once and every PC gets it. In the Group Policy Management Console, create or edit a Group Policy Object linked to the organizational unit that holds your computers. Go to Computer Configuration, Policies, Windows Settings, Security Settings, Local Policies, Security Options, and define the two Interactive logon: Message policies with your title and text. The computers apply it at their next policy refresh, and users see it at their next sign-in after a restart or sign-out.

That is how Jake set up Ethan's office: one policy, eight PCs, and no visits to each desk. To apply it sooner on a particular PC, run gpupdate /force in Command Prompt and restart. For PCs managed with Microsoft Intune instead of a domain, the same settings are available as device configuration settings, in the local policies security options area; search the settings catalog for the interactive logon message title and text.

A domain policy overrides anything set locally. If a PC shows the office banner even after you clear the local registry values, the domain policy is still applying it, which is intended. To check which policy set it, run gpresult /r on the PC and look for the policy name under Computer Settings, or generate the full report with gpresult /h report.html as administrator and search it for "Interactive logon".

Related sign-in policies worth knowing

The two banner policies sit among other Interactive logon settings that shape the sign-in experience. Organizations that set a banner often set some of these at the same time, and knowing them explains behavior you might otherwise find puzzling.

Requiring Ctrl + Alt + Delete adds one step before the banner, and some people find the combination of both a little slow at the start of the day, but it is a long-standing security practice, because only Windows itself can respond to that key combination, so a fake sign-in screen cannot capture it. Hiding the last signed-in user is a good companion to a banner on reception PCs, since it keeps staff names off a screen visitors can see. The inactivity limit locks idle PCs automatically; remember that unlocking afterward does not show the banner again.

What to write: logon banner examples

The best banners are short, clear and specific. People select OK within a second or two, so long legal text gets skipped; a short notice is more likely to be read and is just as effective legally in most cases. Write in plain language, avoid all capitals, which reads as shouting, and keep it under about a hundred words. Here are examples for common situations, which you can adapt.

Business, short: title "Authorized use only"; text "This computer belongs to Example Company and is for authorized business use. Activity may be monitored and recorded. By signing in, you agree to follow the company's acceptable use policy."

Business, with monitoring detail: title "Notice to users"; text "This system and all data on it are the property of Example Company. Use is limited to authorized users for business purposes. Use of this system may be monitored, recorded and audited, and evidence of misuse may be shared with law enforcement. Unauthorized use is prohibited."

Lost laptop: title "Lost laptop"; text "If found, please call 555-0100 or email the address on the back. Thank you, and a reward is offered." Use a phone number or email you are comfortable showing to a stranger, not your home address.

Family PC: title "Hi!"; text "Homework first, games after 5 p.m. Ask before installing anything new." Children see it at every sign-in, which is more effective than a sticky note that falls off.

Shared or club PC: title "Welcome"; text "Please sign out when finished, save files to your own USB drive, and report problems to the front desk."

For regulated industries or government work, use the exact wording your compliance team or contract requires, rather than writing your own, since some standards specify mandatory text. Organizations that need legal certainty should have counsel approve the wording; the examples above are starting points, not legal advice.

Banners in more than one language

Windows shows the banner text exactly as you type it, in any language and script Windows can display, so a bilingual office can include both languages in one message. The simplest layout is the same short notice twice, one language after the other, separated by a blank line, with a title in both languages joined by a slash, such as "Notice / Aviso". Keep each version short, since two languages double the length.

There is no way to show different banner text to different users, because the banner appears before Windows knows who is signing in. If staff speak several languages, either include the main ones or use the language most people share and link to a fuller policy in the text, such as the address of the acceptable use policy on the company intranet. For the lost-laptop banner, a short English message with a phone number in international format works for almost anyone who finds it.

Banners and compliance standards

Organizations in regulated industries usually set a banner because a standard asks for one. Security frameworks commonly include a system use notification requirement: before granting access, a system shows a notice that users are accessing a restricted system, that use may be monitored and recorded, and that unauthorized use is prohibited and subject to penalties. US government systems follow a version of this with set wording, and widely used configuration benchmarks for Windows include both banner policies among their recommended settings.

For a small business without formal compliance needs, the banner is still a cheap, sensible step. It sets expectations on the first screen every employee sees each day, it supports acceptable use and monitoring policies, and it costs nothing to run. Ethan's firm added it for a client audit, but kept it afterward because it settled a long-running question about personal use of office PCs with a single sentence.

Logon banners, automatic sign-in and PINs

A logon banner changes how sign-in behaves in one important way: it stops automatic sign-in. If a PC is set to sign in automatically, which our guide to signing in automatically describes, the banner appears first and waits for someone to select OK. Automatic sign-in continues only after that. For a kiosk or a PC that must start unattended after a power cut, a banner is therefore the wrong tool, since the PC will sit at the notice until someone arrives.

With Windows Hello PIN, fingerprint or face sign-in, the banner appears before the sign-in screen as usual; after OK, you sign in with whichever method you use. Nothing about your PIN or password changes. On a PC where Ctrl + Alt + Delete is required before sign-in, the order is: lock screen, Ctrl + Alt + Delete, banner, then the sign-in screen.

The banner appears after a restart, a shutdown and start, or a sign-out. It typically does not appear when you unlock a PC that was locked with Windows + L, because unlocking resumes your existing session rather than starting a new sign-in. So a user who locks the PC at lunch and unlocks it afterward will not see the banner again, which is usually what organizations want.

Banner, lock screen or desktop: choosing where your message goes

Windows offers three places to put a message, each seen at a different moment. The lock screen is seen first, whenever the PC wakes or is locked; it can show only a picture, so text has to be part of the image, which works for a lost-device notice but cannot be dismissed or acknowledged. The logon banner is seen next, only at a fresh sign-in, and requires the user to select OK, which is why it is the choice for legal notices. The desktop is seen after sign-in, where a scheduled task or startup item can show anything, including longer text and links, but only to people who can sign in.

Match the place to the purpose. Legal notice and acknowledgment: banner. Message to whoever finds a lost laptop: banner, and optionally the lock screen image too. Daily reminder or announcement for staff: desktop. Ethan uses two of the three on his laptop: a lock screen photo with his phone number in the corner, the lost-laptop banner, and nothing on the desktop, because he does not need reminding of his own rules.

Logon banners and Remote Desktop

The banner also applies to Remote Desktop connections, since a remote sign-in is still a sign-in. How it appears depends on Network Level Authentication, which is on by default. With it on, the Remote Desktop app asks for your credentials first, then the remote session starts and shows the banner, and you select OK to continue to the desktop. With it off, the remote screen shows the banner before you enter credentials, like sitting at the PC.

Some administrators are surprised that the banner appears after credentials with Network Level Authentication, but this is expected, and the banner is still shown before any access to the desktop. If a compliance rule requires the notice before credentials are entered, discuss it with your security team, since turning off Network Level Authentication to achieve that weakens Remote Desktop security, a poor trade. Our guide to turning Remote Desktop on or off covers that setting.

Scripts and tools that sign in to PCs automatically over Remote Desktop can get stuck at the banner, because nothing selects OK. If you run such tools, test them after adding a banner.

Banners on Windows Server and Remote Desktop hosts

Windows Server uses exactly the same policies and registry values as Windows 11 and 10, and banners are standard on servers in most organizations, since servers hold the most sensitive data. On a Remote Desktop Session Host, where many users sign in to the same server, every user sees the banner at each new session. Administrators sometimes find this tedious, but it is the purpose of the notice, and compliance rules usually require it everywhere, servers included.

Server Core installations, which have no desktop, still show the banner at the console sign-in, and the same registry values set it. For servers managed in bulk, the same domain Group Policy that sets the banner on workstations can target servers too, often with stricter wording. Test administrative tools and scheduled sign-ins after adding a banner to servers, for the same reason as with Remote Desktop scripts: anything that signs in interactively without a person may stop at the OK button.

How to remove or change the sign-in message

To change the message, edit the same policy or registry values with new text; it takes effect at the next sign-in. To remove it, the values must be empty, not just changed.

1. In secpol.msc, open each of the two Interactive logon: Message policies, delete all the text so the box is empty, and select OK.
2. Or, in Registry Editor at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System, open legalnoticecaption and legalnoticetext and delete their contents, leaving them empty.
3. Check the older location, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon, for LegalNoticeCaption and LegalNoticeText, and empty those too if present.
4. Restart to confirm the banner is gone.

Emptying the values is safer than deleting them, because some tools recreate missing values with default content. If the banner returns after a restart or after a day, a Group Policy or management tool is setting it; on a work PC that is deliberate, and on a personal PC that once belonged to an organization, the leftover policy needs to be removed, often by leaving the domain or resetting the PC. Command Prompt users can empty both values with reg add and an empty /d "".

Changing the wording works the same way: edit both values, restart, and read the new text once to check it. When an office changes its banner, it is worth a short email to staff explaining the new wording, since a changed notice on the first screen of the day can look alarming without context.

Test a banner before rolling it out

A banner is low risk, but it touches the one screen everyone needs to get past, so a little care saves surprises. Test new wording on one PC first, ideally your own, and restart to see it as users will. Read it at the distance someone sits from the screen, and check that the title is not cut off and the text fits comfortably without scrolling. If you manage PCs with scripts, test the script on a spare PC or a virtual machine before running it everywhere.

Before rolling out to an office, think about the machines that sign in without a person: kiosk PCs, meeting room displays, PCs that sign in automatically to run a shop display, and servers with scheduled interactive tasks. Each of these will stop at the OK button. Exclude them from the policy, or plan for someone to select OK after each restart. Jake kept the meeting room PC out of Ethan's office policy for exactly that reason; it signs in automatically to show the day's bookings, and a banner would have left it frozen at the notice every Monday after updates.

Sign-in message not showing: fixes

If you set the banner but never see it, the cause is almost always one of a handful of things. First, you have not signed in fresh: lock and unlock does not show it, so restart or sign out. Second, only one value is set: set both the title and the text. Third, the values are in the wrong place: the current location is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, not HKEY_CURRENT_USER, under SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System, with the exact names legalnoticecaption and legalnoticetext.

Fourth, a policy is overriding your local setting with an empty value; run gpresult /r to see which policies apply. Fifth, the value type is wrong, such as a DWORD instead of a String Value; delete and recreate it as a string. And sixth, on some PCs, a third-party sign-in tool or credential provider replaces the standard Windows sign-in screen and handles banners differently; check that tool's own settings. Ethan's first test on his laptop failed for the most common reason of all: he locked the PC with Windows + L and expected to see the banner when unlocking. A restart showed it straight away.

Showing a message after sign-in instead

If what you want is a message on the desktop after sign-in, such as a daily reminder or a notice that appears once per session, the logon banner is the wrong tool. Two simple alternatives work well. A scheduled task that runs at sign-in can show a message box using a short PowerShell command, so each user sees it once on the desktop. A startup shortcut to a small text or web page placed in the Startup folder opens it at every sign-in.

For organizations, Microsoft 365 and device management tools can show notices in other ways, such as a company portal or a browser start page. For a lost laptop, the banner remains the best choice, because a finder will never get past the sign-in screen to see a desktop message. And for anything shown on the lock screen itself, the lock screen picture is the only canvas; some people put their contact details into the lock screen image itself, a perfectly good approach that our guide to lock screen image settings explains.

Family and school uses

At home, a banner is a gentle, unmissable reminder. It appears every time a child signs in, before the games, and it does not depend on anyone remembering to say it. Short, positive messages work better than lists of rules: one or two lines about the most important thing, such as homework first or asking before downloading. Change it occasionally so it does not become invisible through repetition; children stop reading a message they have seen a hundred times. Because the banner applies to every account on the PC, write it for everyone who uses the computer, not only the children.

Schools with shared classroom PCs use banners for acceptable use reminders, and libraries and community centers for house rules and privacy notices, such as a reminder to sign out and that files are deleted at the end of the day. In those settings, combine the banner with the policy that hides the last signed-in user, so one person's name is not shown to the next. For parental controls such as time limits and content filters, the banner is only a reminder; the real controls are in Microsoft Family Safety and the account settings.

A short history of the Windows legal notice

The legal notice is one of the oldest features in Windows. It dates back to Windows NT in the 1990s, when businesses and government agencies needed a way to warn users before sign-in on shared computers. The original settings lived in the Winlogon registry key, which is why that older location still exists. Later versions added the two security policies, and the Policies\System registry location became the standard place for them.

The feature has barely changed since, because it does one simple job well. The look has followed Windows: from a gray dialog box in Windows NT and XP, to the full-screen message with a single OK button in Windows 10 and 11. Our own guide to it dates from 2016, and the steps in it still work today, which says a lot about how stable this corner of Windows is.

Security notes: what a banner does and does not do

A banner is a notice, not a lock. It does not stop anyone from signing in if they have a password, and it does not protect the data on the drive if the laptop is stolen; BitLocker or device encryption does that. Its value is legal and informational. In many jurisdictions, an organization that shows a clear notice of monitoring and authorized use is in a stronger position if it later has to act on misuse, and a lost-laptop banner improves the chance of a device coming back.

Avoid putting sensitive information in a banner, such as internal system names, support passwords, or anything that helps an attacker. Anyone who can turn on the PC can read it. For the same reason, a lost-laptop message should give a way to contact you that you are comfortable sharing with a stranger. Ethan used his work mobile number, not his home address, and the laptop has device encryption turned on, so a finder can call him but cannot read his files.

One more tip for lost devices: the banner only helps if the finder can wake the laptop, so keep the battery from running completely flat when traveling, and record the device in your Microsoft account so Find my device can show its last location. Find my device, in Settings, Privacy & security, works alongside the banner; one helps an honest finder reach you, the other helps you find the laptop when nobody calls. Ethan turned on both the same afternoon, and checked that his phone number in the banner was one he answers from unknown callers.

A Windows sign-in message takes two settings and a restart, and it does a job no sticky note can: everyone sees it, every time they sign in. Use Local Security Policy on Pro, the registry on Home, and Group Policy for a whole office, keep the text short, and remember that it pauses automatic sign-in. Ethan's office PCs now show the audit notice every morning, and his laptop asks any finder to call him, with a reward.

Revision note. Written October 3, 2026, expanding our 2016 guide to adding a custom message to the Windows login screen. It now covers Local Security Policy, the registry for Home editions with command-line examples, Group Policy and Intune for many PCs, example banner text, how banners affect automatic sign-in, PINs and Remote Desktop, removing a banner, fixes when it does not show, alternatives after sign-in, and security notes. May everyone who signs in read the message you meant them to.