[dexterdoo]

When I turn on the computer it stops at the Welcome screen and has one name, Administrator. I click on it (no password needed) and the computer starts normally. Then I decided I wanted to bypass the Welcome screen and instead boot right into Windows XP Pro. So I did control userpasswords2, unchecked “users must enter a username and password”, clicked the “Advanced” tab and made sure “requires user to press cntrl+alt+del” was unchecked, then went to “User Accounts” and unchecked “Use the Welcome screen” and clicked “Apply Options”.

Then when I rebooted the computer it stopped at the welcome screen again (the very thing I was trying to bypass) and asked for the Administrator password!!! When I clicked on the icon like before it kept telling me the password was wrong when there never was a password before? I don’t get it?? I didn’t need a password before so why do I need one now?? I’ve done this on many computers before and never had this happen.
Fortunately for me this was a spare computer of mine (and not someone elses) so I could reload Windows from a backup I had without having someone really p***ed at me! Where did I go wrong in this process?

[-X-]

I can't see anywhere were you went wrong if your described steps are correct.

[Ponch]

In my experience, with XP Pro, if you only have 1 account (the built-in administrator?) and no password, it should not even have shown the welcome screen at first.
So was it a standard XP install or from a modded cd ? Was the computer (ever) in a domain ?

[allen2]

To my knowledge, when using the ctrl+alt+del interface instead of the welcome screen it will always ask for at least enter unless you enable autologon and sysinternals made a simple utility to help.

[dexterdoo]

Yes, the steps described are exactly what I did and have done many times. The machine was never in a domain and the install was not from a "modded" cd. I think I'll experiment with this a bit more (on a test machine, of course)!