Windows Troubleshooting

Setting Up a Secure Guest Account

By default, the Guest account has access to your computer's programs, to files in the Shared Documents folder, and to files in the Guest profile. But no password is required to use the account, so you'll want to be sure that the Guest account doesn't expose items that a casual user shouldn't see or modify. In fact, the default settings place pretty tight restrictions on the Guest account, but you should ensure that these rather obscure settings are still in place:

Prevent network logon by the Guest account.
This prevents a user at another computer from using the Guest account to log on over the network. In Local Security Settings (Secpol.msc), open Local Policies, User Rights Assignment. Be sure that Guest is listed in the Deny Access To This Computer From The Network policy.

Do not include Guest in this policy if you use Simple File Sharing and you are sharing your computer's folders or printers. Simple File Sharing requires the use of the Guest account for network access.

Prevent a Guest user from shutting down the computer.
In Local Security Settings, open Local Policies, User Rights Assignment. Be sure that Guest is not listed in the Shut Down The System policy. (Even with this policy in place, anyone-including guests-can shut down the computer from the Welcome screen. You can set a policy that allows only a logged-on user to shut down the computer. To do that, open Local Policies, Security Options and disable the Shutdown: Allow System To Be Shut Down Without Having To Log On policy.)

Prevent a Guest user from viewing event logs.
In Registry Editor, open HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog. Visit each of the three subkeys-Application, Security, and System-and be sure that each contains a DWORD value named RestrictGuestAccess set to 1.

How to Change User Password at Command Prompt

How to use the net user command to change the user password at a Windows command prompt. Only administrators can change domain passwords at the Windows command prompt. To change a user's password at the command prompt, log on as an administrator and type: "net user * /domain" (without the quotation marks)

When you are prompted to type a password for the user, type the new password, not the existing password. After you type the new password, the system prompts you to retype the password to confirm. The password is now changed.

Alternatively, you can type the following command: net user . When you do so, the password changes without prompting you again. This command also enables you to change passwords in a batch file.

Non-administrators receive a "System error 5 has occurred. Access is denied" error message when they attempt to change the password

Direct Bootup Without Typing Password

1. At a command prompt, type "control userpasswords2" and press Enter.

2. On the Users tab, clear the Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer check box and then
click OK.
3. In the Automatically Log On dialog box that appears, type the user name and password for the account you want to be logged on each time you start your computer.

Quick SHUTDOWN

1. Open Task manager (By Ctrl+Alt+Del or R.click on the taskbar and select Task manager)

2.Hold Ctrl + Shift and select Shutdown menu and click Turn Off

NTLR (or) NTDETECT.COM not found

1. Copy NTLR and NTDETECT.COM files from /I386 folder of windows XP CD to "C:\".

Note: For FAT partition use Win 98 Start up disk.
Incase of NTFS partition use Win 2000 CD Recovery console or "NTFS 4 DOS"

HAL.DLL missing or corrupted

This problem is due to misconfigured "Boot.ini" file.

solution:
1. Boot using Windows XP CD and Select Repair
2."Bootcfg /list" use this command to verify Boot.ini file.
3. "Bootcfg /rebuid" use this command to repair Boot.ini file now restart the computer.