|
HAVE I HELPED? |
THIS IS THE MOST CONFUSING PAGE I HAVE EVER WRITTEN, BAR NONE...
Here is where I will tell you how to bring back your login screen if you don't have it anymore, specifically for Win9X/ME. Hopefully I will get this figured out before the turn of the next century...... This is NOT the procedure for NT4/Win2K/XP.
First, make sure that "Client for Microsoft Networks" is installed. That is, right click on network neighborhood -> properties. It should be there on the configuration tab. If not, then click Add, somewhere under Microsoft protocol you should find "Client for Microsoft Networks."
If Client for Microsoft Networks is installed, then you need to clear your password file [do a search for *.pwl and erase these files], reboot Windows, and enter a username and password at the login screen. This is the username/password pair that you will enter on all your NT4/Win2K/XP machines, so don't forget it!! If you click cancel on this password screen, of course you do not have access to network resources when you click on network neighborhood. If you have a username, but you don't enter a password, you will be asked a password by the NT4/Win2K/XP machines when you attempt to connect to them.
Actually, I have played around with this a while on a Win98 machine, and as long as "Client for Microsoft Networks" is installed, it ALWAYS asks me for a username and a password. I can elect NOT to give it a password, in which case I need to enter passwords when I attempt to connect to shares. Or I can CANCEL out, in which case I can not browse the network at all. I can also select "Windows family login" as the login in the configuration tab. This still asks me for a username/password. Not sure what the difference for "Windows family login" is..... yet. I believe it just allows multiple family members to share the same PC and have different desktops and customizations if they want.
OTOH this password thing is pretty messed up on Win95/98/ME, especially if you have used the TweakUI tool. A lot of people used that tool some years ago, and it is still around, to REMOVE the requirement of supplying a password on login. We really need an Un-TweakUI tool.
So basically, if all else fails, just UNINSTALL "Client for Windows Networks" and then reinstall it. I would even remove File and Printer Sharing as well, and then reinstall it at the same time. That should restore your PC asking you for a username/password!!!
Do we have this figured out yet.... !
For XP Home, it can be even more confusing. If you don't setup any users when you install XP Home, there is no login screen presented to you. You actually have to go into user and groups after you install everything in order to assign a password to your account. It will then ASK you for the password when you bring up XP. There is really no obvious administrator account on XP Home either. [Well, if you hit CTL-ALT-DEL Twice at the login screen, the normal login screen will come up, where you can get an Administrator login]. It is there - you are just administrator on your machine if you set it up as only one user at the beginning. Microsoft is really trying to simplify this for single users and non-nerds, but they are complicating it for the nerds out there.
What is even worse is that they don't even set a password on the Administrator account! Administrator account, you say...... What is that? Well, it is the all powerful account, which can usually be reached by a double three fingered salute at the login screen. Try it the next time and see what happens. See if a simple carriage return will get you into your PC without a password! If this is the case, then go straight to users and passwords under control panel and setup a password on Administrator account. Just make it the same as your main password. On some machines you will see an "OEM account." I wish I understood all this stuff, but I don't yet. sigh......
Here are some useful tools to recover passwords in varying situations.
If you are running a Linux variant, you can normally enter "single user mode" at the console when you boot the PC. This will drop you into root login with no password. You can then simply enter the command "passwd" and create a new password. This is accomplished various ways, sometimes via "boot single," or modifying the grub boot line by putting a "1" at the end of the line.