Networks & Passwords, Bloody Microsoft!

[Agaricus bisporus]

Using Windows 98, MS office.

Every time I switch the machine on it demands a password despite not being a stand alone machine. It says it will not show this box again if I cancel it. It does not, of course & damned if I can see how to get rid of it for good.

Upon opening Outlook it also needs a password to connect, even if I activate the check box to "remember password" - needless to say ir doesn't!

AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH

Bloody Microsoft!!!

Any ideas?

[pied piper]

If you cancel your initial login it will not "remember" passwords in your applications.

try messing about in the network setupo so that your primary login is not networking, but windows.

Worth a shot :p

[Brit Abroad]

Your initial post isn't very clear when you state "despite not being a stand alone machine"

There are basically 2 types of passwords you can be asked for on startup:

1) Windows password - After a new install of windows you will be asked to enter a password for username: "NAME OF MACHINE" If you leave the password field BLANK and press OK, you will never see this password prompt again. If you enter a password, you will have to enter this same password on every bootup.

2) Network password - If you have a network card installed on your computer along with the client software for windows networks (check in control panel >networks) you will be prompted for a network password every time you bootup. This is the case even if your computer is stand-alone. As the pied piper correctly said, if you press CANCEL on this prompt, then all your subsequent passwords that you had 'saved' by ticking the boxes 'remember password' will be gone. No idea why, but it's the way it is. There is a Microsoft article on this in their knowledgebase.

You have a couple of options to get around this:

a)Enter your network password at bootup and press ok. Now you will be able to store your other future passwords in the stack.

b) Remove the client software for Microsoft windows (control panel >networks) Obviously only do this if you are sure your machine is standalone. If there are problems after doing this, you can always put it back. If you are really sure that your machine is standalone, I would even recommend that you delete the network card software from control panel>networks and then shutdown and physically remove the network card from your machine. - Your PC will boot up much much quicker.

Hope this helps

[Agaricus bisporus]

Sorry guys, my post was misleading. It is a stand alone machine, my home computer. It is not and never has been in a network. I do not want passwords when it is switched on. I do not want to enter passwords to dial, but I cant seem to tell that to the machine.

[WhiteSail]

Try going;

Start; Control Panel; Passwords; "Change Password"

and then,

Enter your existing password in the top box, and leave the other two boxes blank.

Click OK.

That will get rid of the Windows log on password.

If you have a network card, follow previous advice.

Good Luck!

[Narada]

...if all that fails, get TweakUI and give it the password to use at the login
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article04-103

[aspinwing]

I suggest that you try this. Do a search for *.pwl (password log) Change the extentions in case it all gets pear shaped. Delete the pwl file(s) and reboot.

It should start by asking you if you want to setup a Windows login password, etc. It should be like starting with a new file. :cool:

If, for some reason this doesn't work; boot in the DOS mode and change the extentions back to pwl.

Unless there is something weird in your setup, it should work. :eek:

Good luck.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Sadly none of the above have any effect at all. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

But thanks anyway guys. :)

[PaperTiger]

Tried this ? http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q152104

[Gertrude the Wombat]

In addition to the KB article quoted by PaperTiger there are others that go through the 27 things you might have to fiddle with if the "save password" checkbox (for your dial up account) is greyed out. Which it might very well be when you've got rid of the password box at boot time ...