Windows locking itself

I am having the strangest problem that I nor other people I have asked has ever seen before.

My computer seems to be putting passwords on all the user accounts on it's own. I have no idea what the password is because I have never set this computer up to have passwords.

This doesn't happen all the time and it only seems to happen when the computer is idling. I have been noticing it happening more often recently than before.

The funny thing is the solution to removing the password is just restarting the computer.

Could this be some kind of malware or glitch and has anyone heard of this happening before?

are you sure there is a password...

Have you tried blank...as in no password??

MLF

check the screensaver settings. Screensaver cam be set to lock the pc.

Does anybody else have physical access to the computer when nobody is around it? Are they trustworthy?

Might we know the operating system and service pack?

Assuming some sort of NT system please create two more test accounts...... an ordinary one and one with admin rights.............. neither with passwords, and see what happens?

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Originally Posted by morganlefay

are you sure there is a password...

Have you tried blank...as in no password??

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Yes I've tried that.

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Originally Posted by Aardpsymon

check the screensaver settings. Screensaver cam be set to lock the pc.

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No I tried looking in the screen saver settings and I couldn't see an option for setting a password.

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Originally Posted by Raion

Does anybody else have physical access to the computer when nobody is around it? Are they trustworthy?

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Yes my mother and my sister but they have both complained about this happening so I do not suspect it was either of them.

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Originally Posted by nihil

Might we know the operating system and service pack?

Assuming some sort of NT system please create two more test accounts...... an ordinary one and one with admin rights.............. neither with passwords, and see what happens?

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It is windows XP service pack 2.

I will try creating the accounts as soon as I get back to my mothers house on sunday night.

So, you get a password request? What does it look like?

On NT systems (that includes XP) if someone changes the password that password will not disappear after a reboot. So I'm suspecting some sort of application popping up at irregular intervals.

Screensaver doesn't have an option to set a password. It does have an option to request the user's password when unlocking.

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Originally Posted by SirDice

So, you get a password request? What does it look like?

On NT systems (that includes XP) if someone changes the password that password will not disappear after a reboot. So I'm suspecting some sort of application popping up at irregular intervals.

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Nope it's the regular password request while you are at the welcome screen. You click on the user name and it asks that you put in a password. It doesn't give you any hints or anything.

It does disappear when you reboot that's why I said it's funny that it's gone when. I found it very odd that it would disappear from just a reboot. When it first happened I thought I might need to get one of those boot disks to crack it.

Ok, for about two weeks it seemed to stop. It happened maybe once during those two weeks but that was it. Now it's gotten severe. Today every time you switch to the welcome screen everything is locked, so you are forced to restart the computer every time someone else wants on. Usually after a restart it will be alright for maybe the whole day and then it will lock it's self up again.

I have done malware scans that have showed nothing.

Nihil, both test accounts, the admin and non admin account, are being locked as well as all the other accounts on this computer.

Backup, reinstall

Right click desktop goto properties... Click screensaver tab...Uncheck On resume, display Welcome screen...Done.