Win XP logon problems

[Tannin]

A minor one this, but it's driving me nuts. In Windows 2000, you can tell the OS to always assume user ABC with password XYZ is logged on. You do that through changing the properties of "my computer". You can't do it that way in XP. Nor, so far as I can tell, can you do it in any of the other ways that would seem sensible.

Why would you want to do that?

My machines are physically secure - i.e., if you can get your hands on one, I trust you - so I don't want to have to type a password every time I boot. But although they are always behind hardware firewalls, it seems sensible not to use a blank password - which seems to be the only way you can get an automatic logon in XP.

Is there a cure?

 

[time]

No joy with TweakUI?

 

[Howell]

Autoadminlogon will do the trick.

1. Start/Run/Regedit, and then locate the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
2. Using your account name and password, double-click the DefaultUserName entry, type your user name, and then click
OK.
3. Double-click the DefaultPassword entry, type your password, and then click OK.

NOTE: The DefaultPassword value may not exist. If it does not:

a. Click Add Value on the Edit menu.
b. In the Value Name box, type DefaultPassword, and then click REG_SZ for the Data Type
c. Type your password in the String box, and then save your changes.

Also, if no DefaultPassword string is specified, Windows automatically changes the value of the AutoAdminLogon key
from 1 (true) to 0 (false), thus disabling the AutoAdminLogon feature.

4. Click Add Value on the Edit menu, enter AutoAdminLogon in the Value Name box, and then click REG_SZ for the Data
Type.
5. Type "1" (without the quotation marks) in the String box, and then save your changes.
6. Quit Regedit.
7. Click Start, click Shutdown, and then click OK to turn off your computer.
8. Restart your computer and Windows. You are now able to log on automatically.

NOTE: To bypass the AutoAdminLogon process, and to log on as a different user, hold down the SHIFT key after you log off or after Windows restarts.

Note that this procedure only applies to the first logon. To enforce this setting for subsequent logoffs, the administrator must set the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Value: ForceAutoLogon
Type: REG_SZ
Data: 1

 

[sechs]

1. Run command "control userpasswords2"

2. Select account that you want to autologin

3. Uncheck "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer"

4. Enter account's password when prompted


If you're so inclined, you can uncheck the secure logon option under the advanced tab.

 

[Tannin]

Thanks guys.

Time: I got so carried away looking for a completely different thing in Tweakui a while ago that I clean didn't think about looking for this thing in it.

Howell, Sechs method looked easier so I went that way, but I didn't know the shift key trick, which will be handy to remember.

Sechs: brilliant! That's exactly the dialogue I wanted and am faamiliar with from Win2K. I have no idea why they took it out of the GUI for XP, but at least it's still there. Thankyou!

Now .... I still have to figure out how to get my XP machine to talk to the network properly...... I can ping the server, the server can ping me, but zip, nothing, nada else. The Windows 2000 machines can see the server, the XP machine can see the W2K machines, but no connection between XP and OS/2.

And for that particular sort of problem, the obvious thing to do is log on to Storage Forum and ask the old OS/2 expert there, who happens to be ..... ulp .... me!

Thanks heaps guys!

 

[Sol]

I think it'd just about be time to set up a Linux box to potentially replace the OS2 machine when you get used to it. There shouldn't be too much that OS2 is better than Linux for these days so getting used it would be just about all of the battle...

 

[Bozo]

Make sure the XP firewall is disabled.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Tannin]

Done the firewall thing, Bozo, thanks. (Though it would be an easy one to forget.) I use hardware firewalls pretty much exclusively.

A Linux box, Sol? I'm certainly thinking about it - but as a server, not a workstation. I still need the OS/2 main workstation because no other operating system can run my mainstream business applications nearly as well as OS/2 does - OS/2's ability to run multiple busimness and accounting applications (a mixture of DOS, Win 3.1 and OS/2 native ones) seamlessly and with individually selectable usability tweaks is unmatched. I can run (almost) all the apps under Windows, but frankly, they suck. (Try generating an invoice in a DOS-based WP app when the cursor keys fly off the side of the screen in a millisecond. Yup, you can adjust that in Win2K, but it's brain-dead: you are adjusting all applications globally - which makes the whole thing pointless.)

How hard would it be to set up a Linux box with no keyboard or screen, just to act as a file server? And can I justify having yet another dam bx around the place sucking up electrons?

Time I looked at NAS again, I guess. Last time I checked it wasn't viable, but that was a while back.

 

[time]

XP requires more recent SMB than OS2 could possibly have (AFAIK). Sorry if I'm vague, Pradeep et al will remember all this stuff - I need to forget lots of things to remember anything useful.

I can't see a problem with a set-and-forget Linux box as a file server. Given the 24x7 operation, it's a good idea to use a low power setup - that link I posted regarding Athlon power saving includes utilities for Linux as well as Windows, so you could even get by with a Socket A platform.

If all you need is DOS compatibility, couldn't you achieve that under Linux with something like DOS Emulation? Mercutio etc will undoubtedly know more.

 

[Howell]

Why not virtualize the whole workstation with Xen?

 

[Tannin]

Hmmmmm .... Windows in its various flavours from 95 on upwards can't even get close to the degree of control over DOS and 16-bit Windows programs (and thus the practical usability) that OS/2 offers. (Well, actually, I'm running Ecomstation, which is an updated version of OS/2, licenced by Serenity Systems and essentially a pretty fair attempt to carry the existing code base into the 21st century - device drivers, UI tweaks, and so on.) It's difficult to see Linux matching it either, though I have not tried in the last few years.

It is certainly possible to connect an OS/2 system to even Windows XP (which, so far as I am concerned, is always an absolute bitch to network, not just with OS/2, but with any other damn thing), but you require some good luck or else a fair degree of knowlege to do it - knowledge I don't have. Yes, on the one hand I've been using it every day for many years and have done hundreds of installations, but on the other hand, I only have one OS/2 system at present and don't ever get to play with it much — it just works, year in and year out. A couple of days ago I applied some updates. It was the first time I'd done anything at all to that machine for two or three years. (Other than use it, I mean.) That doesn't add up to any sort of decent currency on setup/configuration issues!

I think I need to get either one of two things, not sure which one. Either (a) get NETBEUI working properly under Windows XP - apparently the supplied installation often fails and does not load the correct services, but does it without any error message of any kind (I read this on usenet somewhere recently, from a poster who seemed to be making sense) and you have to fiddle with it; or (b) else I need to use NETBEUI over TCP/IP rather than native NETBEUI in OS/2. When I do this, it fails (witherror message) and I need to figure out why.

Alternatively, I could try upgrading from ECS 1.0 to 1.2. (I tried 1.1 some years ago and didn't get on with it very well.) (2.0 is in beta now, so I might wait for that instead.)

Or just leave everything as it is and move the accounting data onto a Linux box or NAS unit. Easy, but throwing hardware at a problem seems rather wasteful.

Or scrap the XP install and run Windows 2000 on the Thinkpad. It's only XP that has the problems: any other OS networks just fine - yes, from Win95 on up.

Guess I'll buggerise around with it a bit longer, when I get time, see if I can figure it out. (One day.....)

Or .... is it possible to have some sort of relay system? The amount of data that I need to access off the OS/2 box on my laptop is trivial - I'm talking stuff that would fit on one or two floppy discs (well, if I had floppy drives it would) and not on a daily basis either - something more like once every second week or so. There are two Win2K machines on the same network that often run 24x7 .....

STOP PRESS

Cracked it. The USENET poster was correct: the Windows XP NETBEUI installation routine is broken and fails to copy nbf.sys to system32/drivers. Copy it manually, reboot, and we have a working network.

Now the bad news: not knowing if the problem was on the OS/2 side or the Win XP side, I buggerised abut quite a bit with the OS/2 network setup, figuring out, amongst other things, how to get NETBIOS over TCP/IP working ...... and now I can't log onto the W2K machines from the OS/2 machine anymore (but can still go the other way).

(sigh)

Shouldn't be too hard to fix. But first (as Tea would say) lunch!

 

[Tannin]

Done. Works a treat.

Oh, Howell, not going to be required now but that's an interesting emulation thingie you linked to, but from their website it seems that you can use it to emulate Linux, Linux, or Linux at present. Wouldn't it be easier to just run Linux? Or am I missing something?

Whatever: my network is happy and it only took about 4 hours to figure out.

Networks ..... don't you just love 'em?

 

[Sol]

Xen would allow you to have an entire network on just one box. In theory with support for unmodified OSs on the way this would alow you to run OS2 on a linux box and have another virtual linux system functioning as a dedicated router to connect the OS2 box to all your windows boxes with the latest version of samba.

Such a setup would mean that every time MS broke something with a new version of Windows rather than stuffing arround with OS2 for 4 hours or more you could just update the linux virtual machine acting as a router. You might need to change some settings and update the host machine as well but given your knowledge of linux we're talking no more than 2 or 3 days of work/learning... Then you could use OS2, in theory at least, for ever...

 

[Tannin]

bahhh

wrote longish and moderately thoughtful reply, lost the whole thing

see other thread for gory details

 

[Bozo]

Netbeui is not installed by default on XP. See here to install it.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;301041



Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Tannin]

That page is wrong, Bozo. Typical bloody Microsoft. The whole thing works as advertised, except that it fails to copy the driver to the correct location, and fails to warn you that it hasn't installed properly, and when you have finished the install and reboot, it fails to warn you that the service crapped out on load because the required file doesn't exist!

Apart from that, though, it works fine.

 

[Tea]

but given your knowledge of linux we're talking no more than 2 or 3 days of work/learning

Huh? What knowledge of Linux? This is Tannin we are talking about here, is it Sol?

Oh, hang on, I get it. While I've been away, he's been off on a (doubtless very expensive and gin-sozzled) Linux course, has he?

What Tannin knows about Linux you could write on a matchbox. In Texta.

 

[Sol]

What Tannin knows about Linux you could write on a matchbox. In Texta.

Well, they say once you've broken the postage stamp barrier your well on your way to becoming an expert...

 

[Bozo]

I ran into a similar problem the other day. Seems XP would not allow a Win2k box to log on until a password was established for the user account.


Bozo :mrgrn: