Win7 C++ - kiosk mode application does not have admin access - permissions

Question

I'm working on a Kiosk system and I need to be able to lock down the keyboard and turn off the logon screen options on the fly. So at startup my code does these things, and if a security dongle is inserted, it undoes them.
Works fine in non-Kiosk, when I right-click the application and select "Run as administrator". The keyboard is locked down (I'm trapping key strokes), but the logon screen continues to come up with all five option buttons. I added debug writes to a file and found that the reason was "access denied".
My Kiosk is set up with a user that has been given administrator rights, and the application pathname (C:\\.exe) has been set as the Shell value in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon. Since this application will run as session 0, I am not sure what else needs to be done to give it the rights to disable and enable the five logon screen options.

Answer 1

I have experience in develop Kiosk application and I advise you next solution. this is universal solution and works as expected. Run application in logon session - is bad idea. Run app Via winlogon regkey wil not run in session0, it will run app in user session.
Windows kiosk mode need next steps:
Create user for kiosk mode
Set next registry key for this user as path to your application:
Windows XP/7:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"Shell"="C:\\full\\path\\to\\your\\application.exe>"
Windows 8 and later:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"Shell"="C:\\full\\path\\to\\your\\application.exe>"
Autologin for kiosk user:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"AutoAdminLogon"="1"
"ForceAutoLogon"="1"
"DefaultUserName"="kiosk"
"DefaultDomainName"="<place here pc hostname>"
"DefaultPassword"=""
[Option] If you need to disable Ctrl+Alt+Del, then use this registry key value ("") or you can place there own application:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\taskmgr.exe]
"Debugger"="\"\""
Create kiosk user with this your application as shell and create/activate admin with password. With autologin to load as admin press shift when windows loading and before autologin or while logging out - windows will not autologin and show users list. Or, you can not set autologin and windows will show 2 users: admin and kiosk user with this your software.
To disable user input use WINAPI BlockInput
BOOL WINAPI BlockInput(
_In_ BOOL fBlockIt
);
It can be enabled by ctrl+alt+del - in this case with solution above your programm can disable it again.