I’ve been running some older programs successfully in W7’s XP Mode for several months, but recently something changed so that whenever I would wake up the computer from hibernation, the XP Mode would show the XP startup screen with the Username “XPMUser” and ask for my password. I’d enter it, XP would load instantly, and all would be well until the next time I left the computer for too long and it went into hibernation, after which it would wake up again and again ask for the XPMUser password to allow XP to open. Finally, I got tired of having to do this every time I came back to the computer, so I went into XP’s Control Panel and removed the password for XPMUser so that I wouldn’t be bothered with having to enter it time after time.

Now the XP password screen still comes up in XP Mode and shows XPMUser as the Username, but when I leave the password field empty and click Enter, I get the message “Unable to log you on because of an account restriction” (see below): 31541-xp1

If I use the original password that I removed, or any other password, I get the following standard password error message: 31542-xp2

As a result, I can’t load XP in XP Mode, which means I can’t run those programs or access my data stored there. I need to be able to load XP again in XP Mode and I’d like to not have to go through entering a password each time I load XP Mode. Any suggestions or help in getting this resolved will be much appreciated.

Cheers, Al

• WSruirib AskWoody Lounger Did you forget the password?
• * Thanks for the thought, but there’s not a chance of that. It’s a common password I use for lots of minimum security uses, I have it carefully written down with all my other passwords, and it’s also the same password I put in just an hour or so before when I went into Control Panel and removed the password from that account. I’m sure that’s the right password for what USED to be there, but it doesn’t work now, nor would I expect it to, as I had told XP to remove it from that account. I tried going in without any password, which is what I would expect to now work, but got the first message shown in my original post, hence my question.

  My first choice, of course, is to somehow get XP Mode working correctly again, but if that is now impossible, my hope is that I can somehow get to my documents for at least one or two programs I use in XP Mode. I know W7 has them somewhere on my computer, but either they’re hidden or I just haven’t searched in the right place. However, as I said, if I can get into XP Mode again and get it working properly, that would save me a heap of time Cheers, Al

  • Thanks for your suggestion. I had high hopes for that approach, but so far I’m not having any luck. I tried clicking on Restart, but pressing F8 (even repeatedly) didn’t bring up Safe Mode (or anything else) and only brought me right back to this screen again: 31555-xp3 I then tried clicking on Close from that screen to make sure XP Mode was shut down completely, then starting XP Mode all over again, but again, even repeated pressing on F8 from the very beginning of the start-up process for XP Mode only brought me to that same screen, although I think it took less time and went to that screen more directly. Maybe I’m missing something obvious or doing something incorrectly, but so far I appear to be blocked out of getting into my XP programs. I’d really like to be able to get into XP Mode if at all possible, but if it turns out to be impossible, I’ll need to find some way to access the XP Mode files on my hard drive, as they’re currently hidden in W7. Cheers, Al
• WSruirib AskWoody Lounger Once you get to that screen, click the button to shut down XP and choose restart. When XP restarts, press F8, to get to the boot mode options and choose Safe Mode. For username, enter Administrator and press enter. You should be able to login and then you can set a new password for the XP Mode user. I have seen situations like yours happen. I think inserting the password is just a minor inconvenience and you may not be able to get rid of it permanently.
• Did you make any backup images from before you changed password? If so you could do a restore from that image to get back to before the password change. Or maybe in win 7 using a restore point dated before the change might do it (but image is much more likely to work).
• Hi, Clive, Sounds like a great idea to try. No, I didn’t make any backup images close enough to the time when I changed the password to avoid losing large amounts of data, but I do have a restore point that I believe was made a few hours before the password change (I’m uncertain because I’m only guessing at the exact time of the password change). If I understand W7 correctly, I could try doing a System Restore, rather than an entire restoration of my entire computer. I assume that the System Restore should cover my XP Mode and its passwords; is that a good assumption? Thanks for your help. Cheers, Al
• WSruirib AskWoody Lounger A year ago or so, a friend was in a similar situation. To get safe mode to work, the XP Mode window needs to be kept open. Although I have managed to achieved it without it, the easier way to accomplish it is to disable Integration Features. You can then restart with the window fully opened and click F8 until you get the boot options menu. Once you change the password, you can restore integration features.
• Hi, Ruirib,

  To get safe mode to work, the XP Mode window needs to be kept open. Although I have managed to achieved it without it, the easier way to accomplish it is to disable Integration Features. You can then restart with the window fully opened and click F8 until you get the boot options menu. Thanks for the idea, but I want to make very sure I’m clear about how to disable Integration Features before I attempt it. Here’s what I found in the W7 Help description: [h=3]To modify a virtual machine setting[/h] [*] Open the Virtual Machines folder. From the Start menu, click Windows Virtual PC. If the menu item is not visible, click All Programs, click the Windows Virtual PC folder, and then click Windows Virtual PC. [*] From the Virtual Machines folder, right-click the name of the virtual machine and then click Settings. The Windows Virtual PC Settings page opens. [*] In the left pane, click the name of the setting you want to modify. In the right pane, message text will inform you if the virtual machine must be shut down first. [*] In the right pane, make the change, and click OK. When I get into the Settings, I come to this screen: 31556-xp4 My questions:

• At that screen, am I correct in thinking that I disable Integration Features by unchecking “Enable at Startup” and then clicking OK?
• Am I correct that I am to do this while the XP Mode window is open (even though it will only be showing the Login Screen that asks for my password)?

  If both of those are correct, my understanding is that I’ll disable the Integration Features that way with the XP Mode window open, then click Restart, then click F8 until I get into Safe Mode, after which I’ll follow your instructions in post

  4.

  Thanks for all your excellent help. Cheers, Al

  WSruirib

  AskWoody Lounger Yes, either option is possible. I did it from the login screen. Do not worry about it, you can re-enable it at any time you wish, after the problem is solved.

  b

  AskWoody_MVP

  Hi, Bruce, Thanks for your encouraging post. After reading through the links you gave, I realized that I was not alone in having this problem, so I then felt more comfortable in trying the solution Ruirib offered. I hope that his posts, your post, and my experience in trying this method will be of help to others. Cheers, Al

Hi, Ruirib,

That did the trick, though not quite as I’d expected from your description, possibly because I got in a hurry and forgot to have the XP Mode window open. I disabled Integration Features while XP Mode was off/hibernated, then in W7 clicked on Start > All Programs > Windows Virtual PC > Windows XP Mode to start XP Mode from its “off” condition. As soon as I did that and the XP Mode window started to load, I repeatedly clicked on F8, waiting for the Safe Mode option to come up, but it never did. It took a little time, and I was beginning to wonder if I’d messed something up, then suddenly the XP Mode window loaded perfectly! I never (to my knowledge) entered Safe Mode, nor did I ever put in an account name of any sort.

Not wanting to miss that opportunity, I quickly went in XP Mode to Start > Control Panel > User Accounts and restored my old password to the XPMUser (administrator) account, then re-enabled Integration Features in W7. Not only does XP Mode now work perfectly in W7, not even asking me for my password, but simply loading fully – just as it used to when XP Mode was originally set up – but it loads noticeably faster for some reason. Nice bonus!