windows and passwords

Hi. This is not urgent, I am just curious. Occasionaly when I log onto, lets say my bookclub account, Windows will ask if I wish for that info to be saved. However, it doesn't happen every time. Also, sometimes I'll put in the wrong password by mistake and windows will save that one but once I put in the correct password it doesn't ask if I'd like to save again or change my previously saved password. Basically, my question is is there a way for me to get windows to save my passwords without having to wait for the little window to pop up asking me if I wish to do so?
Thanks to any one who can offer help.
Celice

 

Celice--You say you get a request from Windows whether you would like to save your password, etc. Are you sure that request is from Windows and not from the site your are visiting?
Anyway--
1) The way to have Windows (actually IE) save your passwords is IE Tools|Internet Options|Content|AutoComplete|check the box "Usernames and Passwords on Forms ". Note this is for the purpose of AutoComplete--not an automatic entry of the username or password. You usually have to type at least the first letter of the username or password to get Autocomplete to offer to enter the rest.
2) If the little window you see offers to save passwords, check the box. Your password is then usually saved in the cookie from the page. This is not necessarily going to allow AutoComplete, but will speed up recognition of the password when you enter it manually. It also may enter the username for you, though it probably will not enter the password.
3) In spite of the above, many webpages will not allow AutoComplete or the cookie to automatically enter usernames and/or passwords (even when they seem to offer to). So you may have to manually enter.
P.S. I do not understand

If you enter the wrong password, you should not be allowed entry into the site, and I doubt an incorrect password is "saved ". This suggests that either the site really does not need passwords if you are allowed entrance with an "incorrect" password (some malware programs act like that) or that you have at some point registered the "wrong" password and it is being accepted as a correct password. It is possible to have more than one password to enter a website.

 

I'm not sure where IE stores it's passwords but I don't think it's in a cookie. That would be a function of the website you're visiting, not really IE. For instance, I believe if you log out of this web site and log back on you'll see a place where you can select "remember me" or some such thing. That would get written to a cookie but those that IE prompts you to save are a different thing. Perhaps they're stored in the index.dat file or registry somewhere?

Jim, when you enter a password at a website and IE prompts you to save it, it won't prompt you again. So, if you should happen log on to website with the wrong password but select to save the password, naturally you won't get in. But, when you realize you goofed and then type the correct one in, IE won't prompt you to save that one because it has already saved the incorrect one. At least that's the way it used to work for me when I used to use that feature. I think this is what Celise is saying.

Unfortunately, the only way I know to get it to prompt you again to save the password for any particular site is to click tools>internet options>content>auto complete and click on the button that says clear passwords. That will get the prompt back but unfortunately, it'll clear all of the passwords that you've had IE save. Perhaps there's another way to edit out just the one incorrect one but if so, I don't know the answer. Seems to me to be an oversight on MS's part.

 

If Arie's thumbnail is showing what Celice is seeing, I can only say that I have never seen such a window. Windows (with a upper case W) never asks me for a password (at least not in a message as shown by Arie) when I am at a site. Maybe this is because I do not have a check in AutoComplete| "User names and passwords ".
The site often does--or I thought it was the site, since the password entry line is part of the site design.
Zander--

I never said it did. I was responding from the point of view of a password request from a website per above paragraph. I agree that Windows stores passwords in encrypted form in the Registry. I used to know where that was once upon a time, but since the info is encrypted, it was not very useful. Win98 used to use .pwl files. XP does not, or if it does, it is in really hidden folder.
I guess all I am saying is that I have led a sheltered life and have never seen a window such as shown in Arie's thumbnail.
And if I enter an incorrect password into a site's password line, the site just tells me "invalid password ", or something like that. No offer to replace the password. I have to go back a page and enter the correct password.
Again a sheltered life, I guess.

 

Arie--Thanks. Don't feel quite so bad now!

 

Also, in order to get the prompts you have to put a check by the line that says "prompt me to save passwords ". Tools>internet options>content>auto complete>......

 

Celice--Forgive me for having imposed into your thread.
You originally posted

Maybe Zander's last post has answered this. But I wonder (since I do not have the problem) whether you could not solve the first problem by just reentering the original "correct" and be back to where you started. If Windows thinks the "wrong" password has become the correct password, it would seem logical that a new "wrong" but actually correct password would then become the correct one.
Let us know where you stand on this.