Password won't work

After an aborted attempt to use Acronis True Image backup, (see post in hardware "External hard drive ") I can no longer set a password for XP. Let me rephrase that. I can set a password, but on boot and in screen saver it is ignored and XP Home starts without requesting password entry.

With a 14 year old son here who has his own machine but loves to get on mine when I'm not around and look at my "R" rated stuff, password protection is essential.

Anybody know cause/cure? Any and all replies will be appreciated.

Martin

 

Martin - you do manage to keep things interesting.

I don't have an upfront answer but what happens if you create a new, passworded user account and try to log on with it? Are you asked for the pwd?

Do you use fast user switching?

 

Hi Newt: Believe me I don't try to make it interesting on purpose, things just happen.

Ok, I don't use fast user switching, I'm the only user.

Created a new user, gave it a password. Logged it off, logged on to my account, password requested. Entered password, loaded account. Fixed? Deleted new user. shut down, restart, no password request on boot.

But this gave me an idea. Went to Tweak UI for XP. It was set for auto logon, my account, no password entered. killed auto logon. Reboot, at logon, password requested.

To the best of my recollection, been set for auto logon for some time, still always asked for password, since password not entered in Tweak UI.

Anyhow, for now, it appears to be fixed. Thanks, I appreciate your response, without doing the new user/password/logon/off, I would not have thought about Tweak UI.

Now I wonder, can Tweak UI auto logon be used to beat password protection?

Take care

Martin

 

Glad you found the problem.

The autologon thing will bypass your password, sort of. Basically, when it's first set up you have to specify the username and password and that info is stored and used.

As a side note, if you ever do want to use autologon but need to change user accounts (or just check to see what is happening), holding down the SHIFT key while windows loads forces a normal logon where you have to specify the account. I'm not sure (never use the auto-abomination thing) but I think you will also have to key in the password.

 

OK Newt, thanks for the info and thanks again for the help.

Martin