XP log on screen

[ram1009]

Can someone tell me how to get rid of the "Windows Log On Screen" that appears on some (not all) installations of XP Pro? I have two machines both running XP Pro installed from the same disk and kept completely current by Microsoft. One displays the screen on every bootup and one never displays it. To be clear, I'm not talking about the greeting screen that can be turned on/off in the user account. The screen I mean is the one with the blue background and a simple login box asking for a password. Actually, you don't even need a password. If you click "OK" or press "enter" the screen disappears to be replaced by a desktop. Thanks in advance.

 

[aford10]

The one that is prompting for a pass, how many user accounts are on that machine?

What's in the boot.ini file?

 

[ram1009]

The one that is prompting for a pass, how many user accounts are on that machine?

What's in the boot.ini file?

 

[ram1009]

The one that is prompting for a pass, how many user accounts are on that machine?

What's in the boot.ini file?

I am the administrator. There is a "guest" account that is turned off. There is another account called "ASP.NET Machine A..." I have no idea where either of those accounts came from. I thought about deleting them but feared something bad would happen. I found the "boot.ini" file. Only 5 lines & nothing looks suspicious. I tried to do a cut & paste but the window wouldn't let me.

 

[aford10]

The boot.ini file should look similar to this

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect


http://www.mvps.org/marksxp/WindowsXP/aspdot.php

 

[ram1009]

The boot.ini file should look similar to this

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect


http://www.mvps.org/marksxp/WindowsXP/aspdot.php

Actually that's exactly what my boot.ini file says except the "/noexecute=optin/fasdetect" is reversed as in "fasdetect/NoExecute=Optin". Note a couple of caps as well. BTW, that's a great link to Marks website. Are youy Mark?

 

[aford10]

Nope, I'm not Mark. It's some good info I came across.

 

[ram1009]

Nope, I'm not Mark. It's some good info I came across.

Actually, I found the answer to my question on Mark's site. On the homepage there is a link to an article titled "Skip the logon screen and automatically logon". Following the instructions therein didn't work for me at first but after a little experimenting it worked fine. Before you uncheck the box it tells you to you need to highlight the account you want to logon as and when you click "apply" a box appears asking for a password and confirmation. Make sure the proper account is shown in this box but leave the password blank. I don't know why Microsoft makes that screen so difficult to access. I've wondered about how to disable the logon screen many times over the years. Thanks for your help. I hope others will benefit from this.