This works for Windows 2003 and Windows 2008. We use it during our reliability study to let the server owners know that they shouldn't reboot their boxes without a good reason. You can use it for whatever you’d like. :)
The two keys to set:
reg add "\\brad-dc-01\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v LegalNoticeCaption /t REG_SZ /d "MSIT Reliability Study" /f
reg add "\\brad-dc-01\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v LegalNoticeText /t REG_SZ /d "This server is part of the MSIT Windows 7 Reliability Study. The server should not be rebooted. If the server is experiencing a bug, please contact DCOPERATE to triage and they will escalate as needed. If you are rebooting the server for a hotfix, private fix, or other legitimate reason, please document it properly in the shutdown tracker so that the statistics are accurate." /f
Hop to loop it and apply it en masse:
Open CMD with your alt creds and do the following:
C:\Windows\system32>for /f %a in (machines.txt) do (
More? reg add "\\%a\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v LegalNoticeCaption /t REG_SZ /d "MSIT Reliability Study" /f
More? reg add "\\%a\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v LegalNoticeText /t REG_SZ /d "This server is part of the... (HUGE LONG STRING) ... " /f
More? )
How to turn it off:
More? reg add "\\%a\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v LegalNoticeCaption /t REG_SZ /d "" /f
More? reg add "\\%a\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v LegalNoticeText /t REG_SZ /d "" /f
The result:
Another way of doing this is to set "Interactive logon: Message text for users attempting to logon" in secpol.msc...