Windows XP demands User Account password that doesn't exist.

June 22, 2008 2:00 PM

My Windows XP randomly asks for a password for the User Accounts when there is no password, but will accept a blank password field. How do I fix this?

This started about 6 months ago. It will do this for several weeks and then sometimes stop for a week or so. The only problem with this, if I try to Switch Users (not Log Off), it will demand a password and not accept that there is no password. I cannot log back on to the running account, nor to any other accounts, I just have to perform a hard-shutdown. Since this is a shared computer, (none of the accounts have passwords) one person can't leave a program running and let someone else switch users and is forced to either stop the program, or just use that person's Account.

All accounts are set to Administrator if that makes a difference. It has always been like that and we haven't had this problem before. Also when I open Manage User Accounts in the Control Panel it says that there is not any passwords for any accounts. Anyone else have this problem? How do I fix this?

posted by Deflagro to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Is it the blue "Welcome" screen, or do you pick a profile name from a drop-down box? My first guess is you have the login screen set to the old NT-style.
posted by Dark Messiah at 6:18 PM on June 22

It's the blue "Welcome" screen. And like I said, it goes in and out. It stopped again today, but I still would like to fix it.
posted by Deflagro at 7:12 PM on June 22

It sounds like it's locking up when you try to log back in, or do the menus work but not allow you to advance beyond being asked for the password?

This would drive me nuts.
posted by Dark Messiah at 9:59 PM on June 22

I have this problem too, I disabled the "Welcome Screen" and passwords and everything.

I think this might be a bug that came along with a recent update. Waiting for MS to say something about it or fix it.
posted by M Edward at 5:48 AM on June 23