Win XP dialler wrong password

Paul Severs · 7th November 2003

recently took delivery of new Dell PC with Win XP home installed, and followed set-up wizard to enter our three dial up ISP services, including entering the correct password. However, whenever the dialler dialogue box is in automatic mode, it comes up with a wrong password, not the one I entered for it to remember, as although we can't find out what it is, it is 4 digits longer than the correct password! Dell pointed me to a website which deals with Win95-2000se, but not XP!

Anyone know what's wrong? Do I need to reinstall some item from XP OEM CD? Is it a registry problem, as web page states for other Windows OSes?

Newt · 7th November 2003

Password length - XP will display 16 *** symbols regardless of the length of your password if it is shorter than 16 characters. It's a security feature designed to give an onlooker no clue whatever about the length of the real password.

One rather strange cause for this that I ran across several times while doing a little research (so it must not be that rare) is the presence of a bogus user account on the PC - 'bogus' as in an account you didn't create and that isn't an account built by the install routine like administrator and guest. Removing/deleting that account sometimes cured the problem.

Otherwise I'd suggest removing the modem and all associated account information and trying the whole thing again. I'm not having a bit of luck trying to find specifics for this particular issue and XP.

**Johanna** · 7th November 2003

All three dial up accounts are doing this? Or just one?

Paul Severs · 8th November 2003

Thanks to Newt and Johanna for their responses: Newt, I don't know about 16 characters, but it is clearly wrong as the ISPs do not accept it, and I have to type in the correct password and click <connect> again. Johanna, yes, all three connections [2 to same server but with different 'phone number] share the same fault. We use the same password for each, but each one comes up with the longer, unacceptable and therefore obviously wrong password.

The reason I think there is something wrong with the software is we have had two other problems, one with Outlook Express, and one with Windows Messenger, the former being that sometimes clicking <switch identity> either doesn't work at all, or fails to bring up the identity log-on box, or takes me straight to an identity I didn't log into, sometimes clicking the OE icon fails to open the log-in box, sometimes following log-in the window fails to open, and once after my wife had been into her identity, I logged onto mine, but her window came up with her folders, but the 'account' was mine, and I got my e-mails, and had to forward some! When I switched identity to another of mine, the same thing happened. All cured by restarting PC but a bit irritating for a brand new machine!

The Messenger problem was that whenever we connected to internet, my son's messenger identity automatically signed in and conversations began to open, even though none of these options was checked in his properties folder! It hasn't happened today, so maybe he's sorted it out.