Windows XP: Consequences of setting a password for an account

Posted by sleske on Super User See other posts from Super User or by sleske
Published on 2010-01-02T14:52:11Z Indexed on 2010/03/15 4:20 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 245

Filed under:

Windows

|

user-accounts

|

password

|

security

I do not quite understand how Windows (specifically Windows XP) handles accounts with/without passwords.

As far as I can see, on a fresh Windows XP install I have one default account which

has admin rights
does not have a password
will auto-login (without password prompt) when the computer boots

What happens if I set a password for this account? Will it still auto-login? Or will it always prompt for the PW?

And generally, what consequences does it have if I set a password? I noted that Scheduled Tasks apparently cannot run under an account w/o password (creating a scheduled task will prompt for the account PW). Is there anything that will not work with a password set? Why is it even possible to have accounts without a password?

I have some Unix/Linux background, but the concepts appear a little different under Windows.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about Windows

Server 2012 DFS New Member Issue

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am trying to add a new member to our DFS topology. We have 3 DCs (VMs - VMware) running Windows server 2012, two servers are located in or Primary site and the third at our DR site. Currently the two servers at our primary site are currently replicating DFS (full mesh) and are working fine. I have… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
Microsoft Management Console stops working when I add snap-in to it

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have Windows 7 Ultimate OS. I'm opening mmc.exe as administrator and trying add Certificates or any other snap-in, then while loading that snap-in MMC breaks and displays following message and after that it closes automatically once I click on close button on that message. What could be the problem… >>> More
Handling keyboard and mouse input (Win API)

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
There is a number of ways to catch mouse or keyboard under Windows. So I tried some of them, but every of them has some advantages and drawbacks. I want to ask you: Which method do use? I've tried these: WM_KEYDOWN/WM_KEYUP - Main disadvantage is that, I can't distinguish between left and right-handed… >>> More

Related posts about user-accounts

Prevent Windows 7 User Accounts from accessing files in other User Accounts

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm trying to set up another User Account on my Windows 7 Professional laptop for use by another person. I do not want that person to have access to any of the files in my User Account on the same machine. This machine has a single hard disk formatted with NTFS. User accounts data is stored in the… >>> More
JPA entities -- org.hibernate.TypeMismatchException

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Environment: JDK 1.6, JEE5 Hibernate Core 3.3.1.GA, Hibernate Annotations 3.4.0.GA DB:Informix Used reverse engineering to create my persistence entities from db schema [NB:This is a schema in work i cannot change] Getting exception when selecting list of basic_auth_accounts org.hibernate.TypeMismatchException:… >>> More
List of Hidden / Virtual Windows User Accounts

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I’m trying to find a way to get a comprehensive list of user accounts on a Windows 7 system, including hidden ones. The User Accounts dialog (>control userpasswords2) only shows the normal user accounts, and even the Local User and Groups editor only shows normal user accounts and standard hidden/disabled… >>> More
Creating Limited User Accounts on Ubuntu Server

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Using Ubuntu server, I need to create some user accounts that have the following limitations: (1) User may only view and manipulate files in their home directory. (2) User may only execute commands related to rsync and sftp. I want users to be able to backup files using rsync, and I want them to… >>> More
Active Directory using Samba/Open LDAP for user accounts

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I know this is the wrong way round... but Is it possible to use AD in front of Samba for our PC clients, so that the user accounts are in Samba/Open LDAP. Managing our fleet of Windows PC's is becoming more and more difficult with just Samba v3 - until Samba v4 comes along, it would be great if… >>> More