Parallels, Windows XP & User Account with Password

OK, here's the problem. I installed Parallels and Windows XP Pro SP2 using the Express Installation method that produced an instance of Windows with a user account called "Administrator" without a password. Well, that's not very secure so I added a password to the user account and that's when I started to get problems. Basically, Parallels seems to assume that there is a user account called Administrator installed and there is no password so that it can get Windows running as soon as possible when you start running the virtual machine. When I have a password associated with the Administrator account then Windows either throws an error message when the account selection screen is reached or it seems to "skip" this aspect of the logon process and all I get is the message "Windows is starting up...". The error message, to be honest, isn't a problem since I can cancel that, select my account from the list and enter the appropriate password. My issue really is that this option the dismiss the error message doesn't happen too often and the usual result is that I get the "Windows is starting up..." message perpetually.

Is it possible to setup Parallels to use user accounts other than Administrator (my account on the Windows ActiveDirectory at work isn't Administrator, surprisingly)? Is it possible for Parallels to work with user accounts with passwords? Any suggestions are gratefully received.

4JNA said:

above post is correct. windows has auto log-on enabled for the administrator account with no password stored. easy fix.

start > run > type in the box 'control userpasswords2' (without quotes) and click ok

up comes the old school user accounts windows, put a check mark in the 'users must enter a name and password...' box at the top and click ok, restart windows to check you work. now no auto log-on, and you need to sign in.

Click to expand...

Indeed, that was what I was looking for. Unfortunately, when I tried to start Windows today it consistently would go to the "Windows is starting up..." message and the only way I found to get past this problem was to hammer the Enter key during the boot sequence. Anyway, the fix works great and now I'll probably be able to use Windows at work without our network administrators attempting to castrate me - Windows with auto-login is a big no-no.

For some peculiar reason the Administrator account has now disappeared from the basic Control Panel user account management screen and no longer appears in the log on screen, although it does appear in the "old-style" management panel. This doesn't have a negative impact but I thought it was odd.

I personally don't have an answer for you at the moment but can you confirm which version of Windows you are using and which version of Parallels Desktop? This information would aid troubleshooting.

For my part I no longer am allowed to use my Mac at work so I largely don't use Parallels anymore. At present my old Parallels 5 virtual machine is using Windows 7 Home Edition and has 2 user accounts created, one of which is Administrator. The VM logs onto the non-Admin account automatically but if I use the Log Off or Switch User function then both the Admin and Non-Admin accounts are shown. Creating another account sees that account being displayed along with the other 2. As best as I can tell everything is working as I'd expect it, with the exception of the auto-logon but I haven't tried to prevent that this time since I'm no longer using the computer at work (plus I switched to an iMac).