Ernest Burden III Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 I rarely turn off my work machines. But I did a day or so ago. When my main workstation re-started, it prompted me to select a 'user'. It never did that before. I didn't run any update to anything, yet the OS seems to have changed. Ah, but it gets worse. I just turned on my laptop (also on most of the time) to send it some rendering work, and it too suddenly wants me to click on a 'user'. OK....but now it wants a password. I don't recall setting a password (I've never put a password on any OS) and now I'm locked out of my own computer. Oh, and I have a deadline tomorrow, and need to run some images with that laptop. WTF am I going to do about this? I mean...WTF? WTF is up with the OSs (XP) on my machines? WTF*ing F? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted March 2, 2007 Author Share Posted March 2, 2007 Nothing like a deadline to bring out the worst in me and my machines. Something happened (unknown event) to force the laptop to start demanding a password. But since I never set one up, I can't enter it. But it was for a user account (I like how in NT4 we could just log in as admin by default) so a nice person at the Toshiba all-night taco stand and helpdesk suggested using safemode to get in via the administrator (no password) and that way I could delete the password that I never created for the user I don't want to have to log in as anyway. I might have been getting a bit sleepy earlier, but I'm awake now! F*ing hell. Happy birthday to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 Mine started doing that too so I assume MS sent an update that turned on the Welcome screen (Control Panel > User Accounts > "Change the way users log on or off" AND Control Panel > Display > Screen Saver tab > "On resume, password protect" checkbox). If you actually don't have a password (XP can have passwordless users) you can leave the password box blank and hit okay. If that doesn't work, you probably have a password that you forgot about or was set up by Windows Gnomes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koper Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 lol... Ernest, you sure somebody aint pulling a pranck on you?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 Do you have your computer automatically do the windows updates? I could see that as being the reason for your problems, otherwise I have not heard of this happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 is that Ernest using toilet language there? i certainly hope not. he's shattered my illusions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted March 2, 2007 Author Share Posted March 2, 2007 is that Ernest using toilet language there? i certainly hope not. he's shattered my illusions Please keep your illusions of me in place. Everything has a place. When my son was three I was helping him use the bathroom and he let out a string of words he'd been told weren't OK. "Hey, watch the potty talk" I said. He replied "but I'm in the bathroom". 1:30AM with a next-day deadline (two actually) looming and I discover that I'm locked out of the machine I need to render my images. That's the appropriate situation for a few WTFs. When you feel that you are truely and most sincerely F*ed. it is a good time to say so. Since that 'log in' screen has started appearing on seceral PCs I bet it was some sort of 'update', though I thought I have auto-update turned off. Anyway, a password was created on the laptop and its not that I forgot it, I never set one up. A practical joke? The only other users of my laptop would be my sons. They know better than that. They rely on me for food, shelter and access to computers. Thanks, everybody. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 Ernest are you still locked out...I may have a solution... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vizwhiz Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 Ernest you said, F*ing hell. Happy birthday to me. so, here goes nothing ** WTF Birthday To you WTF Birthday To You WTR Birthday dearest Earnest WTF its your Birthday, Microsoft hates you! and many More!!!! ** ok The dearest part was force of habit, a social convention so how is Hell in WTF NY? how are you deadlines not doing? i have had many automatic re-boots with all programs shut down in The am, compliments of MS, (momentarily stupid) There is a conspiracy out There To keep us from getting any work done hope it gets better, can it get any worse? ** Thats Too funny about The potty mouth Tell The kid he needs a password To say That randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 So I talked to my computer guru guy about this on AIM and here is the result of that conversation, I think he has a solution for your problem: mc900fthanna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erickdt Posted March 2, 2007 Share Posted March 2, 2007 Well that didn't work out the way i wanted it to. Let's try this again. mc900fthanna3:18:32 PM): theres a dos app that will do it mc900fthanna (3:18:49 PM): let me check where to get it erickdt (3:18:52 PM): so restart in safe mode dos prompt? erickdt (3:19:01 PM): ok cool erickdt (3:19:13 PM): dont worry if youre busy i thought this might interest you though mc900fthanna (3:20:50 PM): OK, there is an answer mc900fthanna (3:21:00 PM): the answer is this - the ultimate boot disk mc900fthanna (3:21:02 PM): http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html mc900fthanna (3:21:21 PM): if anyone downloads this, they can use it to log in and edit thier password mc900fthanna (3:21:40 PM): once they change thier password, they can log back in and turn off the login password screen mc900fthanna (3:21:56 PM): the login password screen can be removed by running this: mc900fthanna (3:22:11 PM): control userpasswords2 mc900fthanna (3:22:24 PM): if you go to the run prompt and type in "control userpasswords2" erickdt (3:22:26 PM): sweet man, i knew youd be the one to come to mc900fthanna (3:22:31 PM): you will get a menu that lets you fix all that mc900fthanna (3:22:40 PM): as far as the guy getting back in though mc900fthanna (3:22:47 PM): he needs to go here and download this: erickdt (3:22:48 PM): well what im going to do is copy and paste this into the thread mc900fthanna (3:23:01 PM): http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ erickdt (3:23:12 PM): awesome! youre the man mc900fthanna (3:23:24 PM): run the NTFS offline password editor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsf Posted March 3, 2007 Share Posted March 3, 2007 It used to be that we could blame certain render engines for crashing our systems as we slept, when it was merely an update restart. But this, this is real progress not only does Microsoft lose your work, it locks you out so you can't fix the mess they have created. That, my friends, is real "innovation". I hope you get things sorted out Ernest. Scott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 3, 2007 Share Posted March 3, 2007 You know, Cinema and all the Adobe stuff run on Mac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Alexander Posted March 3, 2007 Share Posted March 3, 2007 WTF...... nah it's merry flippin' christmas, in my book! Very interesting you bring this up. We have a 24 node Boxx render rack, now being dwarfed by a 40 node Dell, swwwinnnngggggg, at work.....but the same thing happed over the last week or so. Every Node when you access from outside now requires the User name and password. Not a big deal with C4D, however with Backburner, Big Problems. The funny thing is all the automatic updates are supposed to be turned off. WTF, ooppps I mean merry flippin' christmas, how'd that happen??????????????????? Conspiracy theory goes like this.....MS set it up internally to initiate at a fixed date, probably to compliement some greater security scheme.....fargin bastages....life goes on. MS or Apple???? That's a choice between Billy's capitlistic machine and the socialist republic of Steven Jobs, pass the Koolaid I don't want either really, just want something that works, LOL Wax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted March 3, 2007 Author Share Posted March 3, 2007 Very interesting you bring this up. Every Node when you access from outside now requires the User name and password...all the automatic updates are supposed to be turned off. I knew it! See, I'm not just being paranoid, someone is actually out to get me. Why, I don't know. WTF's up with that? OK, enough with that stuff. Thanks for letting me know this really was an evil MS auto-screwing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Alexander Posted March 3, 2007 Share Posted March 3, 2007 "Paraniod"...well before I say we both are not dellusional, you look over your shoulder I'll look over mine....just to make sure the little men in the white coats aren't chasing us both, LOL "They're coming to take us away hehe hoho haha, to the funny farm where life is....." Cheers Wax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 3, 2007 Share Posted March 3, 2007 It's not that Microsoft is out to screw you, it's that they don't care whether or not they screw you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChooChoo Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 well, when I see this pop up, asking me for a logon name, I immediately know it's .NET framework. It might not be relevant to you, but I just delete the .NET framework. However, you may NEED the .NET framework for some programs to work properly. The password thing is the classic startup screen. Usually, you can just type your user name in and hit enter without any password and it goes. Dunno if this will help or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted March 5, 2007 Author Share Posted March 5, 2007 I suspect I have found the culprit. Here are the important parts from: Time Change a ‘Mini-Y2K’ in Tech Terms New York Times, Article By STEVE LOHR Published: March 5, 2007 Two years ago, when Congress passed a law to extend daylight saving time by a month, the move seemed a harmless step that would let the nation burn a little less fossil fuel and enjoy a bit more sunshine... Any device that has an internal clock looms as a potential problem and must be tweaked for the time change, usually with a software patch. The latest Windows operating system, Vista, is not affected, and for those running Windows XP Service Pack 2, online software updates have been pushed out automatically to correct the problem. So even with automatic updates turned OFF, we got our software updates pushed out automatically to correct the problem. And cause a few more. Microsoft couldn't have 'pushed out' an email to tell all of us that they decided to screw with out computers without our consent? They don't think I want the choice to manually adjust my PCs' clocks (or not! like I care if I'm an hour off for two weeks) instead of have a forced patch? What arrogance! I really freaked out when that happened. It almost caused me to blow some deadlines by locking me out of a machine I needed to run images on, and that could have cost me a lot of money. The Toshiba tech support got me through it, but this crap wasn't funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vizwhiz Posted March 5, 2007 Share Posted March 5, 2007 EBIII we dont even do Daylight Savings Time here in Arizona and yet we still got The 'benefit' of having our computers updated automatically, with or without our own permission i guess if MS has your 'virtual' identity in Their database Then we are all fair game for Their pleasure, fun and games maybe They should change Their name To MicroTorture? my computer rule of Thumb, Less is Moore or 'upgrade = downtime' ** Thanks Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted March 5, 2007 Author Share Posted March 5, 2007 Two points come to mind about the Toshiba tech support. First, I should contact them to praise the fact that they were there 24/7 free (Microsoft's site mentioned support some hours of some days at $59.00) to help me with a crisis that wasn't even a problem with their product (they did sell me the OS though). Second--why didn't the tech support of a major vendor for Microsoft get a routine warning of an update 'pushed out' to their customers? MS never thought anyone would notice or be bothered? An entire renderfarm choking on its work wouldn't be a problem for anyone? I'm obviously pretty ticked off, but look at how Toshiba came through for me. I'm really glad I bought their laptop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckytohaveher Posted March 6, 2007 Share Posted March 6, 2007 WTF -- Follow the logic: 1.) Microsoft can push an update onto your machine without you knowing about it, even with updates turned off. 2.) That pushed update is a low-level OS file. 3.) Someone hacks that mechanism. 4.) Someone then 'pushes' a different update out to ALL machines using this mechanism. 5.) All computers with this system crash. You may say that the machine is looking out to the Microsoft site only for the push. A.) Someone writes a seperate virus to substitute a different address for the 'lookup' of the update. B.) We get the same net outcome. We are in trouble aren't we?!!??!??! It doesn't seem that far out that someone could theoretically and practically crash every system out there.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted March 6, 2007 Author Share Posted March 6, 2007 It doesn't seem that far out that someone could theoretically and practically crash every system out there.... The Mac shall inherit the Earth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted March 6, 2007 Share Posted March 6, 2007 The Mac shall inherit the Earth That's absolutely profound ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vizwhiz Posted March 7, 2007 Share Posted March 7, 2007 It doesn't seem that far out that someone could theoretically and practically crash every system out there.... luckytohaveher said This could be The Mother of all Viruses, push push push randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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