Login: unable to type password at welcome screen (several PCs)

Symptom: a user can not type a password in at the winxp welcome screen, no
flashing insertion point shows, no "blobs" appear.

However, this is not a hang. The keyboard works (can use up/down arrow
keys), and 2xCTRL-ALT-DEL allows log in fine using traditional login
username+password method. Mouse works. Machine seems otherwise fine. In fact,
following login, works as normal so the problem does seem to be confined to
the welcome screen functionality. Problem always goes away after a reboot.

Background: O/s : WinXP PRO SP2 throughout. This problem first appeared last
month, on several PCs, on different LANs at different sites, and has also
been seen on PCs belonging to other independant organisations.

Rule-outs: The machines are apparently healthy, no obviously relevant recent
changes have been made to them, no recent apps installed. They are well
secured (no regular users have administrative access nor are they power
users), and have been virus-scanned. They are not all the same mfr.

Speculation: Windows update hotfix automatically delivered?

Any suggestions,

--
Cecil Ward

[jwf]

Hi Cecil and Kenneth,

I faced the same problem, and here is the command that fixed it.

regsvr32 shgina.dll

Press Enter.

Ramesh,

Thanks very much for that.

Still too early to tell, but I have applied this fix to eight machines. The
machines were rebooted afterwards, and since rebooting always cleared the
problem immediately for a while, I will need to give it a day or so to see if
the problem indeed appears fixed permanently.

More information. Tested four machines on Friday which were all experiencing
an intense form of the problem. In every case a user could log in using
double-ctrl-alt-del plus traditional login with username+password, then
logged out and experienced the can't-enter-password-at-welcome-login problem,
100% reproducibly, again and again until a reboot cleared the problem. In
every case on every machine there was no hang, blind typing was not effective
(typing the correct password and hitting enter was not effective).

In your opinion, is the fact that a reboot cures the isue consistent with a
problem curable with the proposed re-registering fix?

I will also review the list of hotfixes auto-applied during october.

Anyway, will report back.

--
Cecil Ward

Hi Cecil,

>> In your opinion, is the fact that a reboot cures the isue consistent with
>> a
problem curable with the proposed re-registering fix?

Nope. If this problem is intermittent, I don't think the registration
procedure will help. Then it must be caused by something else.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


"Cecil Ward" <cecil@cecilward(.donotspam).com> wrote in message
news:461BB875-0F66-42EF-8499-10C1649BBFDB@microsoft.com...
Ramesh,

Thanks very much for that.

Still too early to tell, but I have applied this fix to eight machines. The
machines were rebooted afterwards, and since rebooting always cleared the
problem immediately for a while, I will need to give it a day or so to see
if
the problem indeed appears fixed permanently.

More information. Tested four machines on Friday which were all experiencing
an intense form of the problem. In every case a user could log in using
double-ctrl-alt-del plus traditional login with username+password, then
logged out and experienced the can't-enter-password-at-welcome-login
problem,
100% reproducibly, again and again until a reboot cleared the problem. In
every case on every machine there was no hang, blind typing was not
effective
(typing the correct password and hitting enter was not effective).

In your opinion, is the fact that a reboot cures the isue consistent with a
problem curable with the proposed re-registering fix?

I will also review the list of hotfixes auto-applied during october.

Anyway, will report back.

--
Cecil Ward

[redcomb]

I have the same problem on healthy Windows XP Home. I have 5 users; two of them (including the administrator) are password protected.
The password can be entered every second time. That’s mean I need to login to unprotected account then log out to be able to type the password. It becomes very annoying and even worst. I can confirm that this problem appeared for the first time after October’s installation of hot fixes. I’ve tried the “regsvr32 shgina.dll” after reading this thread, but it doesn’t help. Is there a way to report this bug to MS or something like that?
Thanks

I confirm that the fix suggested earlier is not effective.

I have now seen this bug on more than 15 machines, on different networks,
and on machines belonging to different organisations. Every machine is
virus-clean and well-secured. Each problem instance began in late autumn 2006
and is still unfixed (AFAIAW) as of today.

Is there any way to escalate this general issue?

Every machine has the following characteristics:

i) problem not apparent immediately after boot.
ii) at some point, the bug strikes, and from then on, the bug affects every
successive login attempt until rebooted,
iii) one the bug has struck, repeated logging in and out does not fix the
problem, (using the workaround that 2xctrl-alt-del bypasses the welcome
screen and presents the traditional username/password prompt, so allowing
successful login)

iv) there seems to be no pattern in the onset of the problem
v) certain machines are completely immune

vi) all machines are otherwise fine, have been thoroughly security inspected
and scrutinised for infection. Every machine is well secured in the sense all
that no everyday users have administrative rights or administrative access.

Speculation: the issue was caused by Windows Update, possibly by a bad
chaining or unfortunate sequence of applied updates.

I have had the same problem as others in this group with XP randomly
asking for a password. I have two user accounts one with a password
and one without. It is annoying and sometimes logging off and on fixes
this or rebooting will.

The last time it happened my wife was on the user account without a
password and I tried logging into the account with the password and I
couldn't (password wouldn't enter as before). I logged back into the
my wife's account. I then used Process Explorer to see what processes
were running that may be causing the problem and I found nothing
definitive. I then stopped all the processes running under the
password account thinking I could log back in that way.

Here's the scary part, when I switched user I didn't get the login
screen I got a blank desktop with the password accounts wallpaper (no
icons or task bar). I then hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and went file/run/explorer
and guess what, I was into the account???!!!???

[Dingo]

I was having the same symptoms and found the solution that worked for me, hope this helps...
I saw where someone said to make sure that under User accounts in the control panel under "change how users logon or off" that "Use the welcome screen" was checked, what I found was that mine was unchecked (but still using the welcome screen???) and when I tried to check it McAfee kept blocking the change as it was a suspicious script.
I had to disable McAfee, check the box and re-boot, problem is now gone on my offending machines.
Good luck!

[marcolopes]

I'm having the same problem for months, now.
Tried everything i could think off.
This is an intermient issue, and it think it only happened to me WHEN i'm SWITCHING accounts...

[SRKeller01]

I think I found a potential solution. I was having a very similar problem. I was unable to see the cursor in the password box during xp logon (5-user xp Home system, I'm the administrator). Also the password box appeared rectangular rather than the usual elongated oval. However, I could type my password in blindly and the computer would eventually log me on after 10-15 minutes. The problem seemed somewhat intermittent and seemed to get worse. I ran an AOL computer check, and it suggested my computer's performance could be improved by reducing the size of the cache for the Internet Explorer Temporary Internet Files. I reduced the cache size from 1024 MB (the maximum) to 128 MB, and the login problem went away completely. My system has been fine for two weeks now. I don't understand why this worked (could it be related to a program automatically checking something using the web during the logon process and the cache being too large and too full?). I would really appreciate it if anyone has an explanation why this worked. To change your cache size, in internet explorer (I'm using version 7.0), go to Tools-Internet Options-Browsing History-Settings. Good luck!

[marcolopes]

IE settings have a WIDE range of consequences! That a reason why i hate IE so much: It messes up with many things that aren't IE related.

Concerning the last post, i can tell you that i have a 50MB cache in IE7 and the login problem still persists. So, at least in my case, that's not the issue.

[cub682]

I've had the same login issue for months and was wondering if anyone knows the fix.
I cannot find Microsoft security update KB923191 in add/remove programs or c/windows to uninstall it, however Windows Update and Belarc Advisor both show it successfully installed.
I have read on a couple other sites that this update is the problem. Could someone please explain to me how to remove this update?

[mrnoisy]

Removing this update solved the problem for me

Here's how to do it...

Start - Control panel - add or remove programs (tick the "Show updates" box at the top). You should be able to see Kb923191 in the list. Uninstall it and don't forget not to re-install it the next time you do a windows update!

[wreckoning]

I too was unable to login to Windows XP (media center edition) despite having the correct password. This problem persisted even when I created a user account that did not require a password. It occured "randomly" when switching user accounts or when logging in after the screen saver exits to windows screen. Rebooting did correct this problem.

I followed mrnoisy's instructions to remove Kb923191. This seems to have fixed the problem. Thanks very much everyone, this bug was seriously annoying!

[Brian2]

Isn't it dangerous to remove a windows update like this? I can understand doing it to fix the logon problem, but doesn't that pose a security risk by not having this patch? I would rather have the inconvenience of having to resort to the classic login prompt where you have to enter a username and password than to remove something that could keep my computer safer.

I have two accounts on the computer, one an administrator account and the other a limited account. I have the administrator account password protected and I too have run into this issue of being unable to type a password on the welcome screen. I don't have to reboot to fix it though. Sometimes if I log into the limited account where I don't have to enter a password and then log out again and try clicking on the admin name again it then shows the cursor and I can type a password.