Windows XP Having Problems with User Accounts

[jagwolf]

My OS is Windows XP

I am having problems with the following:

1) do not have a welcome screen
2) do not have a switch user button on log off window.
3) can not change 'change the way a user logs on and off' in the user accounts window.
4) can not change a user account picture

This is what happens: when I start my computer a black screen with a logon window is displayed. The user name is in the user id box and that is the way I can switch user accounts.

I have searched everything I can on the internet and found nothing on the symptoms that I have.

Please help me.

 

[SlimJim]

Some of the symptoms sound as if you are running an account without administrative privileges. You can check if this is the case by accessing the User Accounts via control panel and looking at the description next to your user account icon and name. This should say Computer Administrator if you wish to make the changes listed.

However, the inability to change the user account picture may mean a more serious problem since that should be available to all accounts.

 

[jagwolf]

all of the four accounts have Computer administrator. This is very strange. I have asked people at work and nobody can figure it out. But thanks for the response.

 

[Abarbarian]

Have you checked for virus's and trojans etc .

 

[jagwolf]

I have check everything I can think of. Spyware, trojans, virus. Nothing seems to be the casue of the problem

 

[Abarbarian]

Try downloading and running Hijack This ,

http://www.whatthetech.com/hijackthis/

 

[Anon_F]

all of the four accounts have Computer administrator. This is very strange. I have asked people at work and nobody can figure it out. But thanks for the response.

Is the pc a works pc?
If so you may not have the rights to change things!

 

[jagwolf]

The pc is a personal computer. It is rarely used because we all have our own laptops.

I don't know when this happened but it was fine some time ago and then one day it was messed up. My kids swear that they didn't do anything to it. But I guess I won't know the truth until I get it back to the way it was. I do believe them and they might not know that they did anything wrong if it was them.

 

[SlimJim]

There is a microsoft knowledge base article which may be related dealing with the loss of the welcome screen and fast user switching.



http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817142