Sudden logon prompt

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Guest

I'm getting this second hand from a relative who bought a used W2K
workstation from her employer a couple of weeks ago, so some of the things
she's telling me may be the result of confusion. But she says that until
today, whenever she turned on the computer, it booted straight into windows
and never prompted for an ID or password. But today, she got the "Press
ctl+alt+delete to logon" window, and it's asking for an administrator
password.

I work with Windows 2000 a lot, but I never knew there was a way to boot
directly into Windows without prompting for security. Is this possible? And
if so, what could have happened that caused the change in security all of a
sudden? If she doesn't know the password, then I assume the only solution is
to re-install the OS?

Thanks,

Tom
 
Yes, you can boot on a local Windows 2000 without using Ctrl+Alt+Del, or
without supplying username and password, it's called autologon or
Automatic Logon. It is a security risk where anyone can have access to
the workstation but many use it on their home machines, see here:

How To Enable Automatic Logon in Windows 2000 Professional
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=234562

Try this password reset/hack tool if you can't logon.

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor, Bootdisk / CD
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

John
 
w2k machines that are not part of a domain can use autologon to bypass the
prompt. have her try just leaving the password blank, assuming the os was
reinstalled or originally set up without a password this might work. a
likely change is that she installed the .net framework from windows update,
this adds an account for web services that has a side effect of turning off
the autologon. if it won't take a blank password then try getting one of
the free password reset downloads like the one at
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ and reset the administrator
password. then you should be able to reenable the autologon.
 
John said:
Yes, you can boot on a local Windows 2000 without using Ctrl+Alt+Del,
or without supplying username and password, it's called autologon or
Automatic Logon. It is a security risk where anyone can have access
to the workstation but many use it on their home machines, see here:

How To Enable Automatic Logon in Windows 2000 Professional
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=234562

Try this password reset/hack tool if you can't logon.

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor, Bootdisk / CD
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

John
Click to expand...

In addition to the other replies - if this is a used computer, DEFINITELY
flatten & reinstall. Even if it's from a trusted source.
 
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