N
Nick
Guest
Any idea why my Win98SE screen saver password every few weeks reverts
to the old password? The new one fails after it worked fine for days.
The screen saver is native to the OS. The network password remains
what it should be. I change the screensaver password and everything's
okay until some weeks later. No one else uses the machine and it's not
on the Internet. I use profiles as if for multiple users (I forgot
what apparently worked better that way), but mine's been the only
login all this time. I'm not going to a previous state with registry
and startup files, and if Win is doing that without telling me it's
not telling me, but whether the reversion only happened after a cold
reset I don't recall. Nothing useful in <SYSTEM.INI>.
Wasn't a problem before the last time I changed the screensaver
password, which is also after the *.pwl file was last modified (I
changed my login password then, too). I don't know where the
screensaver password is stored, but "Underwater (high color).theme",
Underwater.scr, & Underwater.dll were last modified in 1999, as are
all of "C:\Program Files\Plus!\Themes\Underwater*.*", which should
eliminate them; and it's not in the registry (unless encrypted).
According to Find for the whole computer, the only files modified the
same recent day I last changed my password were C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
\~DFE6E9.TMP, ...\~DF5F4C.TMP, ...\~DF52A4.TMP, & ...\~DF60EA.TMP
(each 3,584 bytes); they respectively contain the following plain
English per Notepad: ~DFE6E9.TMP has "R o o t E n t r y",
~DF5F4C.TMP has "R o o t E n t r y", DF52A4.TMP has "R o o t E n t
r y", & ~DF60EA.TMP has "R o o t E n t r y", "SCANDSKW", "SETUP",
"W8Ç" (unknown if relevant to platform being Win98SE), "SETUP",
"SETUP", "SETUP", "SETUP1", "SOFFICE", "SOUNDMAN" (I don't know what I
have in the bought-as-barebones machine that's about Soundman or in
the homebuilt that used to house the HDD w/ same OS), "SPOOL32",
"ST6UNST", "START", "STPSUP", "SUCATREG", "SYSINFO ?", "SYSMON", &
"SYSTRAY".
As an experiment, I changed the password recently to the normal
password twice via each of two methods (via Display and Passwords
applets), i.e., 4 times total. Every time it said it had successfully
been changed, which means it can't tell the difference if there's no
real change. I tested the password correction; it works now.
One hunch: The old password was 8 characters long, all different. The
new password is the same minus the rightmost character. (I know that
kind of change is weak security, but that's a different subject. I
should tighten that after I solve this problem.) Could the similarity
mean Win is sometimes remembering the old one?
I'm glad I know this old password, but I shouldn't have to. I usually
discard them. Ideas?
Thanks.
--
Nick
to the old password? The new one fails after it worked fine for days.
The screen saver is native to the OS. The network password remains
what it should be. I change the screensaver password and everything's
okay until some weeks later. No one else uses the machine and it's not
on the Internet. I use profiles as if for multiple users (I forgot
what apparently worked better that way), but mine's been the only
login all this time. I'm not going to a previous state with registry
and startup files, and if Win is doing that without telling me it's
not telling me, but whether the reversion only happened after a cold
reset I don't recall. Nothing useful in <SYSTEM.INI>.
Wasn't a problem before the last time I changed the screensaver
password, which is also after the *.pwl file was last modified (I
changed my login password then, too). I don't know where the
screensaver password is stored, but "Underwater (high color).theme",
Underwater.scr, & Underwater.dll were last modified in 1999, as are
all of "C:\Program Files\Plus!\Themes\Underwater*.*", which should
eliminate them; and it's not in the registry (unless encrypted).
According to Find for the whole computer, the only files modified the
same recent day I last changed my password were C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
\~DFE6E9.TMP, ...\~DF5F4C.TMP, ...\~DF52A4.TMP, & ...\~DF60EA.TMP
(each 3,584 bytes); they respectively contain the following plain
English per Notepad: ~DFE6E9.TMP has "R o o t E n t r y",
~DF5F4C.TMP has "R o o t E n t r y", DF52A4.TMP has "R o o t E n t
r y", & ~DF60EA.TMP has "R o o t E n t r y", "SCANDSKW", "SETUP",
"W8Ç" (unknown if relevant to platform being Win98SE), "SETUP",
"SETUP", "SETUP", "SETUP1", "SOFFICE", "SOUNDMAN" (I don't know what I
have in the bought-as-barebones machine that's about Soundman or in
the homebuilt that used to house the HDD w/ same OS), "SPOOL32",
"ST6UNST", "START", "STPSUP", "SUCATREG", "SYSINFO ?", "SYSMON", &
"SYSTRAY".
As an experiment, I changed the password recently to the normal
password twice via each of two methods (via Display and Passwords
applets), i.e., 4 times total. Every time it said it had successfully
been changed, which means it can't tell the difference if there's no
real change. I tested the password correction; it works now.
One hunch: The old password was 8 characters long, all different. The
new password is the same minus the rightmost character. (I know that
kind of change is weak security, but that's a different subject. I
should tighten that after I solve this problem.) Could the similarity
mean Win is sometimes remembering the old one?
I'm glad I know this old password, but I shouldn't have to. I usually
discard them. Ideas?
Thanks.
--
Nick