WinXP laptop "forgets" the user password

[M Skabialka]

I wiped out an old laptop and started over with windows XP a year or so ago.
I added two user names, one with a password which I use - the other was
supposed to be for someone else who hasn't ever used the machine. That user
name has no password, but is set up as an admin account also.
Twice recently I have tried to log in and it said my password was incorrect.
I only use this password on this machine, and checked that caps lock wasn't
on.
I finally had to log in as the other user and change my password back to
what it was. This worked for a few weeks then happened again.
This is a home computer, so the usernames are not tied to any accounts
anywhere else.

There aren't many applications on this machine, MS Office 2003 and Visual
Basic Express, no games or anything. No email acccounts.
What can cause a WinXP laptop to lose a local user account password? If I
hadn't had that other user account so I could change the password I would
have lost my work.

Mich

 

[Lem]

M Skabialka wrote:
> I wiped out an old laptop and started over with windows XP a year or so ago.
> I added two user names, one with a password which I use - the other was
> supposed to be for someone else who hasn't ever used the machine. That user
> name has no password, but is set up as an admin account also.
> Twice recently I have tried to log in and it said my password was incorrect.
> I only use this password on this machine, and checked that caps lock wasn't
> on.
> I finally had to log in as the other user and change my password back to
> what it was. This worked for a few weeks then happened again.
> This is a home computer, so the usernames are not tied to any accounts
> anywhere else.
>
> There aren't many applications on this machine, MS Office 2003 and Visual
> Basic Express, no games or anything. No email acccounts.
> What can cause a WinXP laptop to lose a local user account password? If I
> hadn't had that other user account so I could change the password I would
> have lost my work.
>
> Mich
>
>

BTW, you could always have used the built-in Administrator account even
if both of your administrator-level *user* accounts were disabled.
That's one reason that it's a best practice not to use the built-in
Administrator account on a regular basis (so it has less chance of
becoming corrupted).

Click Start, Control Panel.
Double click Administrative Tools.
Double click Local Security Policy.
Expand Account Policies and select Password Policy.
In the details pane, if MaxPasswordAge is non-zero, set it to zero.
Click OK.
--
Lem

Apollo 11 - 40 years ago:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/40th/index.html

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

"M Skabialka" <mskabialka@NOSPAMdrc.com> wrote in message
news:#FcDEWvtKHA.2072@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> I wiped out an old laptop and started over with windows XP a year or so
> ago. I added two user names, one with a password which I use - the other
> was supposed to be for someone else who hasn't ever used the machine.
> That user name has no password, but is set up as an admin account also.
> Twice recently I have tried to log in and it said my password was
> incorrect. I only use this password on this machine, and checked that caps
> lock wasn't on.
> I finally had to log in as the other user and change my password back to
> what it was. This worked for a few weeks then happened again.
> This is a home computer, so the usernames are not tied to any accounts
> anywhere else.
>
> There aren't many applications on this machine, MS Office 2003 and Visual
> Basic Express, no games or anything. No email acccounts.
> What can cause a WinXP laptop to lose a local user account password? If I
> hadn't had that other user account so I could change the password I would
> have lost my work.
>
> Mich
>

You can probably find the answer yourself when you find out **when** exactly
the password was changed. Type this command from a Command Prompt:

net user "xxx"

Replace xxx with the name of the problem account.