signing on

[Jerome Nadelhaft]

I need serious help. Yesterday I wrote in to ask h ow to change the opening
screen on my wife's computer when she turns it on. She was getting a
divided screen which required her to click on her name before the desktop
would come one.

In the meantime, foolishly, before an answer came, I tried to 'fix' it. I
went to user accounts and then clicked on change how you want to want to log
on or off. Then I unclicked 'Use the Welcome Screen' since that was what we
were tryingn to get rid of.

Unfortunately now we get the box which asks for user name and password. And
even more unfortunately what my wife enters isn't accepted. So either she
has forgotten her password, which of course she hasn't had to use in years,
or something else is going wrong. The net effect is that she cannot get
into her computer.

Is there anything that can be done? II doubt if we have any windows xp
discs around.

Jerry N

 

[Malke]

I need serious help. Yesterday I wrote in to ask h ow to change the opening
screen on my wife's computer when she turns it on. She was getting a
divided screen which required her to click on her name before the desktop
would come one.

In the meantime, foolishly, before an answer came, I tried to 'fix' it. I
went to user accounts and then clicked on change how you want to want to log
on or off. Then I unclicked 'Use the Welcome Screen' since that was what we
were tryingn to get rid of.

Unfortunately now we get the box which asks for user name and password. And
even more unfortunately what my wife enters isn't accepted. So either she
has forgotten her password, which of course she hasn't had to use in years,
or something else is going wrong. The net effect is that she cannot get
into her computer.

Is there anything that can be done? II doubt if we have any windows xp
discs around.

If you have forgotten your password, if you have another user account
with administrative privileges you can log into that account and change
your original user account's password from the User Accounts applet in
Control Panel. If you don't have another account like this set up or
don't have the password to it, you'll need to log into the built-in
Administrator account. In XP Home, boot the computer into Safe Mode. Do
this by repeatedly tapping the F8 key as the computer is starting up.
This will get you to the right menu. Navigate using your Up arrow key;
the mouse will not work here. Once in Safe Mode, you will see the
normally hidden Administrator account. The default password is a blank.

In XP Pro, you do not need to go into Safe Mode. At the Welcome Screen,
do Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to get the classic Windows logon box. Type in
"Administrator" and whatever password you assigned when you set up Windows.

If you reset the built-in Administrator account's password in Home or
have Pro and don't remember the password, use NTpasswd to change the
built-in Administrator account's password to a blank.

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Then go to the User Accounts applet in Control Panel and set passwords
that you will remember and make other desired changes.


Malke

 

[Jerome Nadelhaft]

Problem solved, sort of. That box that came on asked one to enter the
password if one had one, which of course implied that one didn't need one.
And she didn't.

Jerry N

 

[Nepatsfan]

In

I need serious help. Yesterday I wrote in to ask h ow to
change the
opening screen on my wife's computer when she turns it on.
She was
getting a divided screen which required her to click on her
name
before the desktop would come one.

In the meantime, foolishly, before an answer came, I tried to
'fix'
it. I went to user accounts and then clicked on change how
you want
to want to log on or off. Then I unclicked 'Use the Welcome
Screen'
since that was what we were tryingn to get rid of.

Unfortunately now we get the box which asks for user name and
password. And even more unfortunately what my wife enters
isn't
accepted. So either she has forgotten her password, which of
course
she hasn't had to use in years, or something else is going
wrong. The net effect is that she cannot get into her
computer.

Is there anything that can be done? II doubt if we have any
windows
xp discs around.

Jerry N

Your wife's ability to simply click on her user account name to
logon via the Welcome Screen would indicate that her account
has a blank password. Have you tried leaving the Password line
blank in the Log on To Windows dialog?

Good luck

Nepatsfan