XP login screen problem

[George Neuner]

Hi all,

I had a weird problem today that I've never seen before. Google has
not been helpful ... lots of reports of login problems but I can find
nothing similar to my problem.

I've got a XPpro SP3 machine, fully patched, with 2 users. One of
them went to login this morning, but the graphic login screen wouldn't
allow the password to be typed - the password box appeared when she
clicked on her user icon, but the mouse cursor remained as a hand,
there was no input cursor in the password box and nothing could be
typed. The second user then had the same problem.

Since the mouse worked, they tried rebooting a few times, but the
problem remained so finally they called me to look at it. I was
immediately able to login using CTRL-ALT-DEL bring up the login prompt
.... so the keyboard was working. But the login screen still refused
to allow password entry.

I turn the machine off completely and then restarted it again, and now
it's working properly again.


The only thing out of the ordinary is that the machine hibernated
yesterday due to a power failure. It is on UPS and the hibernation
occurred automatically. But after the power was restored, it was used
for several hours and the users reported no trouble.

I have a number of similarly configured machines and I really don't
like phantom problems that disappear with a reboot. Has anyone seen
this before? If so, what was it and how was it resolved?
George

 

[C.Joseph Drayton]

Hi all,

I had a weird problem today that I've never seen before. Google has
not been helpful ... lots of reports of login problems but I can find
nothing similar to my problem.

I've got a XPpro SP3 machine, fully patched, with 2 users. One of
them went to login this morning, but the graphic login screen wouldn't
allow the password to be typed - the password box appeared when she
clicked on her user icon, but the mouse cursor remained as a hand,
there was no input cursor in the password box and nothing could be
typed. The second user then had the same problem.

Since the mouse worked, they tried rebooting a few times, but the
problem remained so finally they called me to look at it. I was
immediately able to login using CTRL-ALT-DEL bring up the login prompt
... so the keyboard was working. But the login screen still refused
to allow password entry.

I turn the machine off completely and then restarted it again, and now
it's working properly again.


The only thing out of the ordinary is that the machine hibernated
yesterday due to a power failure. It is on UPS and the hibernation
occurred automatically. But after the power was restored, it was used
for several hours and the users reported no trouble.

I have a number of similarly configured machines and I really don't
like phantom problems that disappear with a reboot. Has anyone seen
this before? If so, what was it and how was it resolved?
George

The only time I have seen that was when Windows was set to be able to
turn off the USB port. Then the USB mouse or keyboard would not always
work properly. I would have to do a F8 on startup then have it load the
'last known' to get it to boot.

Sincerely,
C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T

CSD Computer Services

Web site: http://csdcs.site90.net/
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)90.net

 

[George Neuner]

The only time I have seen that was when Windows was set to be able to
turn off the USB port. Then the USB mouse or keyboard would not always
work properly. I would have to do a F8 on startup then have it load the
'last known' to get it to boot.

Sincerely,
C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T

Hi,

The machine does have USB keyboard and mouse, but both were functional
- the login screen simply wasn't allowing password entry. I was able
to log in using CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up the classic prompt.

Since I first posted I've found a number of complaints about similar
problems being traced to SHGINA.DLL registration being messed up ...
but that causes a login failure every time and isn't fixed by
shutdown. I re-registered the DLL anyway.

Apparently there's also an issue with the security event log filling
up and preventing non-admin logins, but that isn't the case here - the
machine doesn't have auditing turned on.

George

 

[George Neuner]

On Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:07:09 -0400, George Neuner

Still trying to resolve the problem of not being able to enter
passwords on the welcome screen in XPpro.

I have noticed one odd thing: the classic login prompt (accessed
through CTRL-ALT-DEL) seems to work only if no user is currently
logged in. But the password entry bug (or whatever it is) can strike
with a user logged in. Without the classic login prompt, there is no
recourse but to reboot and lose whatever that user was doing.

Is there any way to force the classic login prompt to work always? I
don't mean enable it for all users ... I want users to normally use
the welcome screen but have the classic login prompt always available
if needed.

George