Why do I have to login twice?

I have 3 PCs running XP (one is XP Pro). I have accounts for both me and my wife on all of them. Most of the time, once we login, we rarely logoff, just "switch users ". I have the screensavers set up so that when we resume (from the screensaver), we get the Welcome Screen. I have a password on my account because I have scheduled tasks, and they require a password.

Anyway, sometimes (on any one of the 3 PCs) when I get the Welcome Screen upon coming back from the screensaver, I'll enter my password, and it will look like my desktop is starting to appear, but I end up back at the Welcome Screen, and have to enter my password again.

I'm pretty sure I'm entering my password correctly, because when I don't, I get a message, "Did you forget your password? "

Anyway, what's up with having to enter my password twice? (So far, I've never had to enter my password more than twice)

 

With Fast User Switching you need to logoff, prior to switching Users. Otherwise, the FUS session is still active. All active user sessions will require a logon on Resume if that is what you wish your settings to be.

Fast User Switching is a feature that's designed primarily for home users. One thing that Fast User Switching does is to check local accounts for blank passwords to determine if a prompt should be provided for a particular user or not. Users who have elected to maintain blank passwords are not shown the prompt for their account when they switch accounts. Since your account is the only one password enabled, it will be prompted for password credentials for the active background FUS session.

You might consider disabling the password requirement on resume.

 

My problem is not that I have to enter my password when I resume my session, it is that [sometimes] I have to enter my password twice: on coming back from the screensaver I get the Welcome Screen. I click on my account, and it prompts for my password. No problem with that. I enter my password, and click on the "white arrow in the green box ". Then, it looks like I am being reconnected to my session. My desktop is starting to appear, but, before it finishes, I end up back at the Welcome Screen. I click on my account again, enter my password, click on the arrow, and then I'm reconnected to my session. I've never had to do that 3 times, but I say one time out of ten (when coming back from the screensaver) I'll have to enter my password twice to reconnect to my session. If I were typing my password incorrectly, I would get a message: "Did you forget your password?" I'm not getting that.

 

I understood the issue with your first explanation.

Since you have a setting that requires a password on Resume, you need to enter a password for both FUS sessions, as I explained above.