Logon to desktop

undefined I used to be able to power up and my pc would automatically go to the desktop without having to logon or inter a password or anything. I did a disk clean up and now I have to logon and click on password. This is a personal computer that no one else uses so all of that extra work is a waste of time and unnecessary. Can any one tell me what to do to change it back? I am running XP Pro

 

Would you be comfortable doing a couple of very minor registry changes?

 

Logon

Sure would! I can get along a little better than a biginner now. So go ahead nd hit me with it. Frank

 

NEWT,

This guy is my brother, so use the KISS principle when talking about
reg changes....

Thanks,

 

There is something you can try before venturing into the shadowy and dangerous world of the Windows registry.

Go to Start>Run, type in "control userpasswords2" (without the quotes, with the space after "control "), click OK.

In the window that opens, uncheck the box for "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer," click OK.

In the dialog box that opens, enter the exact name and password (check for typos!) of the account you want it to login to automatically. If the account has no password, leave the password field blank. Click OK.

If that doesn't work (although I've yet to see it fail), wait for Newt's registry edit.

 

Miz - yours is the exact same as I'd recommend in many cases. However, only with a couple of cautions.

- If you are on a network at home using 2K or XP PCs, you will need to be entering a password to properly connect to the other machine. In that case, you pretty much need to put the auto-run entries in the registry that
.. tell the system to log on automatically
.. enter the username you have in a reg value
.. enter the password you have in a reg value.

It works fine except for the fact that your password in the registry will be unmasked and can be read by anyone who knows where to look.

- If you remove the logon requirement via the method MIZ posted, you may want to remove the password from the Administrator account if it has one. Otherwise, it's too easy to forget what it is and then if you ever need to use the recovery console, you will be stuck when it demands a password. Blank will work if the the password for the actual account (from the window you have opened to make this tweak) has been removed.

In my situation, I have 2 XP PCs networked at home so need a non-blank password to use resources on my wife's PC. I also have grandchildren who visit and use the PC. My solution is to have my personal account passworded, the admin account passworded, and the 'kids' accounts with no password so they can't get on to Grandma's PC from mine. Since I log on once a day (for the whole day) unless I'm booting after software updates or have grandkids at the house, the extra couple of seconds to click an icon and type a password is well worth the benefits I gain.

 

OK guys, thanks for the info. Got it back to normal now. This is good.