XP Suddenly Requires Password

Hi there. I've had great luck with this forum in the past...I'm hoping you can help again! I have a Compaq laptop running Win XP Home SP1 connected to a home network (three computers) with a linksys router. The laptop is the only machine running on wireless.

Yesterday I was having problems connecting to the wireless network (there were no wireless networks shown when I refreshed the list), so I rebooted the laptop. When it came back up, the logon screen was different. I have never set up any XP passwords, but now it requests a password for my primary user name (and also shows Guest, which has never been there before). I have tried just hitting enter (with no password) and attempted other possible passwords to no avail. When I use no password I get a message that reads "Local policy of this system does not allow you to logon interactively."

I have attempted to go into Safe Mode, but then I am asked for an Administrator password. Again, I have never set up one. Leaving it blank doesn't work, nor does using Admin. So it seems that I am effectively locked out of my system.

As far as I know, no new software has been installed in the past week or so. (I am the primary user, although my preteen children use the system to play online games.)

I went to http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ and made a bootable CD to attempt to reset the password. It seems to boot fine off of this disk, but instead of getting the prompts to answer per the instructions, I just get a prompt reading Caldera DR-DOS 7.03 [DR-DOS] A:\:

Any ideas? I really would rather not have to totally reformat and reinstall. I do have the Compaq Operating System CD with XP on it. Is there anything I can do with that?

Thanks for your help!

Karen

 

Oh geeze, I should try reading the WHOLE problem.

 

Sorry, but unless someone tells you how to hack into your computer you will need to do a clean install. More than likely, someone who used your computer recently put a password on the Administrator account and turned on the Guest account (for you). I say that because a hijacker probably wouldn't have been that thoughtful. Maybe you can get someone to confess?

I would refer you to the Malware forum, but if you don't have Administrator access you would be wasting your time.

The Safe Mode Administrator account is the default Windows Admin account. Whoever installed XP on your computer did create a password for that account. It is part of the setup process. If you can find out what that password is, then we will have something to work with here.

For future reference. It is very dangerous to not password protect the administrator account of the computer ("you" in this case). It's even more dangerous on a laptop. I hope that you don't make this mistake again. You need to turn on the guest account for users other than yourself so that they don't have full access/permissions on your computer. The guest account is a limited account which secures your computer even more.

 

I disagree on a few points there.

First of all, try booting to Safe Mode, and log on with the username, Administrator. If you don't have a password, leave it blank

 

Didn't she already do that?

Maybe I misunderstood, but I think that she tried that already.

 

You are right, I missed it. In which case, I'd try http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307545, even if it is OEM. Keep in mind when copying over the default system hive, you will need to rename it from system.bak to system.

The reason is, that if the Admin account cannot login interactively, something mucked up the registry. Nothing in Safe Mode would hinder this, as no domian restrictions are in place. Thats why I don't think this was a concious effort on someone's behalf. Its certainly possible/likely malware had a hand in this. It may require a reinstall, but there are a few things we can try first.

 

Since you said that you still have the Windows XP Install CD handy - Try this link:
I Forgot My Administrator Password! - Can't Log On to Windows XP

Note: Be sure to print out a "Copy" that webpage - using another computer, of course - in order the retain the contained step-by-step description of the initial "repair" process [to save and refer to later]

 

Hi again. Thanks for the info. I'm pretty sure now that this is not a password issue.

I tried the information in the link that COMPUABLE suggested. I was able to get to the command console and set it to not prompt for passwords. I then set the Administrator password to Admin. When I restarted, the Admin password prompt blinked on, then I got the error message "Administrator unable to log you on because of account restriction." Then it switches to my user name and Guest, but the password fields still appear. When I put in a password, I get the message "The local policy of this system does not permit you to logon interactively." In safe mode, the admin password gives me the "local policy..." message.

Adrynalyne, do you think it still makes sense to try your link. At this point I'm willing to try anything...it can't mess anything up more!

Do you think someone was messing with my network? I have it encripted and firewalled...but I did notice right before I shut down yesterday that there was a network found called "homeless"...makes me wonder...

Thanks again for all the help.

 

Hey, I've been doing a bit of research and I think this could possibly have something to do with my problem. I noticed when I was in changing the user passwords that there was a user name ASP.NET. It looks like .NET framework software this may have been installed as a regular Microsoft update and there may be logon problems associated with it.

See this link:
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...05aec2c3e90/c7d044b644c5ce5c#c7d044b644c5ce5c

If that is the problem, how do I fix it?

Any ideas?

Karen

 

Its not related. The article I linked still applies, IMO.