How to remove welcome screen WinXP

[BigEndBob]

Since loading the driver for my HP1510 printer on my laptop and desktop computer, Win XP now starts with the 'Welcome' screen and user icon for me to click on, which i have never had to do in the past and which is really annoying.
I never set it to change , so why should some 3rd party software decide it was a good thing!

Anybody know how to set it, so on start, it goes straight to my desktop screen as before.

Seemed to have tried all the options on user accounts.

[Keef]

Type "control userpasswords2" (without the quotes) into the "Run" box.

Untick the box at the top about "users must..."

The rest is intuitive.

[BigEndBob]

Thanks for that, sorted.

[BigEndBob]

Answered too soon, now i have two accounts, personal and admin.
Actually theres 4 showing?
Now takes time loading up either account.

I just wish the software writers or some windows update would stop fiddling around with my settings!!

Now nearly everything as disappeared off my desktop, gotta go hunting.

Looks like a complete reinstall coming up.

Might try switching off windows update.

Strange we had a computer at work with 'not' genuine copy of windows.
Funny how it never updated or suffered from any bugs for 3 years.

[DUS SLF]

A few generic suggestions as I never encountered this particular problem.

1) Never seen personal settings completely vanish (which doesn't mean it can't happen, though). So your desktop settings and all other things should be somewhere. Did you try all accounts shown on the welcome screen yet? Did you check the Documents and Settings folder for an "orphaned" folder that might be yours?

2) Assuming you find an account that seems to be yours, make it an admin account again and remove the password (if any) from the account.

3) Remove all the "useless" accounts just keeping yours and after a reboot the welcome screen should no longer appear.

Of course there are a number of scenarios where 2 and 3 might get you in trouble so please be careful.

Possibly a simpler solution: Do you happen to have a system restore point before the driver install that might be convenient to use?

In any case: Good luck! (And sorry if the suggestions are way too obvious)

[twiggs]

Just install TweakUI (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx) then go to logon > autologon

[Parapunter]

B.E.B. You said in another thread that you have this thing for wiping & rebuilding windows every six months or so to get rid of the 'accumulated bugs' etc. I think you're on the wrong track personally, however, if it is how you feel most comfortable running your systems, then hey, why not?

Here's an idea though. Once you've done your rebuild & it's all ticking along just the way you like it and beforeyou start picking up these bugs and problems, you could fire a system back up over the thing so that you get to rebuild it just the way you like it. I use Acronis true image for my system. I had to use it once after I managed to poke the insides a bit too hard & it came back as though I had never been away. Did what it said on the tin. There are of course plenty of other similar apps for doing the same thing.

Just an idea & I don't meant o teach your granny to suck eggs, but a system backup program would give you instant bigendbob shinyness at the touch of a button.

[Keef]

If you've got 4 accounts on there, one of them is going to be the one you want.

Find out which one it is (maximum 4 "restarts" needed), and set that as the default with control userpasswords2. Check it works, leave it for a couple of days to be sure. Then delete the other accounts to prevent confusion.

You might, depending on your attitude to security, want to have a "default start" account which is you, but not an admin. A separate, no details one for adminny things.

[Ancient Observer]

Some advice on here is not for the technically illiterate types - like me. An earlier post said:

"Type "control userpasswords2" (without the quotes) into the "Run" box.

Untick the box at the top about "users must..."

The rest is intuitive."

Er, don't do that. My pc did not like that at all - it just decided that it would take hours to start up. To put it right, I re-ticked the box when the pc decided that it would work.
If there is an idiot proof way of getting rid of that welcome screen, I would like to know it!
Thanks

[Hobgoblin]

Ancient, do a search on Google for Karoush Ghazi's Tweakguide for XP. I think his website is tweakguides.com. Anyhoo, it's a free download and a very worthwhile read. Should have most of the answers you need and then some. Helped me loads with my stone-age laptop.

Anyone giving you an answer such as do this do that is being very nice but they're not really helping you. Give a man a fish and all that.

He also has a guide for Vista should anyone need it.

[Ancient Observer]

Thank you. I've done that, and I'll have a read.

[Saab Dastard]

Control Panel, User Accounts, Change the way users log on or off, Select Logon and Logoff options.

SD