good morning Brink

It's been over 5 years since I have had to assign a 'log on' password in XP, and I have forgotten some details about setting a password for when I log off/back on. I know there is much advice out there, but I find it too vague and imprecise. I need precise and won't in the least be offended if you talk to me like a 3-year old *LOL*. At least I'll 'get' it.

So, in Win7 Pro I have been told to navigate to control panel/user accounts/create a password for your account. Not a problem.

When I click on "create a password for your account", I note that I am "PW, Administrator". So...does that mean that the password I will have just created is my Admin password or my USER password....damn MS can be so obscure at times.

the questions are:

1. if I assign the 'user account' password.. is that the password PW uses to log on with? or do I have to log in as Admin? (I don't know how to log in as Admin either... duh)

2. if I assign the above password.. is that the pwd I need to use for my screensaver as well, or would I have to create a NEW one for the screensaver?

any help/advice you can give would be so much appreciated. The answer is probably staring me right in the face but....I can't see it

thanks again,

Bootsmom

not to belabour the point but......

are you saying that because PW IS the Admin, the password would be the same for the user account PW AND the Admin account?

I swear I took my stoopid pill this morning, I have a mental block about this <grin>

*sorry* !

TIA

thanks for your patience, Brink. I appreciate your help.

Bootsmom

So... :) in order to be certain that I was logged on with my PW username (and not admin), I logged OFF (knowing there was no password for either account yet) then logged back on again and found the little lighthouse icon with my PW under it. Then I created my PW username password, logged off then back on, typed it in and it WORKED! *yay* Thanks Brink.

Hello Brink, hope you can help. I administer the home pc which has family member user accounts on it (no passwords are set). I am forever getting it in the neck from these family members when the windows account password expiration kicks in every (I guess 42 days).
I have tried to follow 2 of your tutorials on un setting the maximum password age, but both have failed. I note the detail about some things not working in the Home version, so have tried using the C: prompt screen, as described.

when typing net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited - I get system error 5 has occurred access is denied
when typing in wmic path Win32_UserAccount set PasswordExpires=False - it does it for the Administrator, my account, Guest and the HomeGroup users but not for the family accounts which gives generic failure on the first account.

Hope this makes sense and you can help.
Thanks