Welcome screen no show at startup?

I have a new laptop and I activated the 'Guest' account for other users as alot of people use this computer when we are at the beach. My account 'David' and 'Guest' account are now active. I checked the "Use the Welcome screen" in control panel, user accounts, for both accounts, but the computer still boots to my desktop when you first turn it on. If you allow the computer to go into standby, and then comeback up, it comes up on the Welcome screen as I would expect. How can I get it to boot to the Welcome screen at startup? Thanks...

 

There are a number of small scripts available for fixing various XP problems here, one of which will restore XP's Welcome Screen (right-hand column about halfway down).

I've used these scripts and they are safe.

 

Thanks for the try, but no go. The script says my setup is correct and the Welcome screen should be the default startup, but no joy .

 

Interesting. There are several other things you can do/try.

First off - the guest account is probably active if you are using it but if it's somehow not, it won't show on the welcome screen and if you only have one account set to show there, the screen never comes up.

Set for the classic logon screen. Will require typing in the username you want but should work. Either select from a button or if you like reg tweaks
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
Value Name: LogonType
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (0 = Classic Mode, 1 = Welcome Screen)

If you really want to use the Welcome Screen (easier with those nice user icons on there) you could try adding the Guest account as a special user. Not sure what this would do but it might force it to the screen. If not, easy enough to undo.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList
As a test, you could add the administrator account here since otherwise it doesn't show on the welcome screen.

Next, I found an .exe that may repair whatever your problem is. Can't say exactly what it does but the site is one I trust for tweaks.
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/fix_xp_logon.htm

 

I found the answer on the Microsoft web sight:

The Guest account is not relevant when Windows determines if there is only one user without a password. If there is only one user registered on the computer, the "Welcome" logon screen is not displayed before the account is logged on. You can use the Fast User Switching feature to gain access to the Guest account.

Note that this behavior occurs only if the user account is part of a workgroup (not a domain) and any of the following conditions exist:
No password is configured for the user account.
No other users are registered on the computer.
RESOLUTION
To work around this behavior, either add a second user to the computer or create a password for the user account. This prevents the account from being logged on automatically. For additional information about creating user accounts, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
279783 HOW TO: Create and Configure User Accounts in Windows XP

Wouldn't you know, another 'feature' presented to you by Microsoft. Now I wonder if creating an Administrator account would solve the problem. I don't want a password and don't want to creat another account. Baaaaaa

 

You already have an Administrator account. Just doesn't normally display on the welcome screen. Not sure if adding it would make things behave as you want or not. Certainly worth a try though.

And glad you found the part about the Guest account not showing on the screen unless it had a password or unless you had other accounts. Thanks for posting that information.