User Name is missing on XP startup screen

[Guest]

My XP Home Edition startup screen "To begin, click your user name" is now
missing the User Name icon, so the only thing I can do is to shutdown or
restart the PC. Any ideas of what has happened?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

My XP Home Edition startup screen "To begin, click your user name" is now
missing the User Name icon, so the only thing I can do is to shutdown or
restart the PC. Any ideas of what has happened?

You can press Ctrl+Alt+Del twice, then enter your user
name and password.

Have a look here for hints on how to hide/unhide user names:
http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/tune-10.html

 

[blah]

Are there any other icons there to click

 

[Guest]

I've followed these instructions to try and sort my father inlaws with the
same problem (missing user names) but he doesnt know the password?

Also once, or if, I can log on how do I rectify this problem so the
usernames show up on the front screen?

Many thanks

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

When your father in-law buys a new car then he would
insist of getting a set of spare keys, for obvious reasons.
When he gets a PC then he should set up a second admin
account, for equally obvious reasons. If he did not do this
then things become a little difficult. He now has several
options:
- Try to logon as Administrator, using a blank password.
Who knows - it might work!
- Ask the person who sold him the PC what password
he set for the Administrator account.
- Look up the documentation that came with the PC.
- Boot the machine with a boot disk from here and set
the Administrator's password to a blank:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html.
It's scary stuff but it works.
- Reload Windows from scratch.

About your second question: What account names exist on
this PC? You can find out by doing this (after you have
resolved the password issue):
- Click Start / Run / cmd {OK}
- Type this command:
net user {Enter}
What do you see?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick response, just as an additional quesiton. He bought the
computer years ago so in the event of not being able to logon as admin would
any of the other options retain the info on the computer. It's his business
computer, had it for years, and has all his work on it, acct, client files etc

And yer I know he should have a back up, but imagine a businessman who knows
to push the on button, select an office app and then type, that is how the
machine is used.

Thanks again for you help!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Resetting the password will not affect the data stored on
his PC.

While I'm aware that a business man's computer literacy
may be limited to pushing the right buttons, he should know
that a PC requires expert maintenance, same as a car.
If he is not an expert in his own right then he should
seek expert advice. If he does not then he might have to
pay a very steep price indeed.

This would be the right time to buy a 2.5" hard disk and
an external USB case, to be used for regular data backup.
Tell him that all important files must always reside on at
least two independent media. Keeping them on a single
disk is playing Russian roulette.