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Screensaver passwords in Win 95

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3 replies

by ruthiem

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Screensaver password in Win 95 is not being saved.
I have set a pasword on the screensaver.
Initiallty when the screensaver comes on you are prompted for the password but when the machine is rebooted the password setting are lost.
Any ideas?

3 replies

by guruofdos

Do you have any networking components installed? That is, Dial-Up-Networking to an ISP or a network card?

Windows 95 stores passwords in a password list (*.pwl) file for each user that logs onto the machine. Logon is normally only available if you have networking installed. A way round it is to install dial-up networking (even if you DON'T connect to the internet. In the Networking section of the Control Panel, make sure one of the protocols you have installed is Microsoft NetBEUI and that you have Client for Microsoft Networks installed. Using regedit to examine the registry, search for 'autolog'...it will find an entry called AutoLogOn....if the value is set to 0, change it to 1. This will cause Windows to prompt for a user name and password at every boot. Having 'logged on', Windows will now store all the passwords, inclusing the screensaver password, in the appropriate *.pwl file.

Note, hitting the 'Esc' key at logon will log windows on with no user data, so any passwords will be bypassed.

by admin

you might check to make sure this is working. Also, FYI, win95screensaver passwords are all but useless. a simple reboot or slim jim for those of us that want to freak out our users immediately comproise them. I wouldn't depend at all on them for anything.

by guruofdos

Yes they are worse than useless! The same way keyboard locks were on older AT PC's!

If the supplier ever supplied the keys that is....I had one key that fitted ANYTHING we ever had, and it was the only keylock key we ever had in the company! And besides, one tweak of a jumper or the 5 pin keylock lead was all it ever took to get round that!!

There was a program we used to use. It was called FutureLock and was available from www.nerdsunlimited.com....it was about the only thing that seemedto make W95 even remotely secure. It did require the CMOS settings to be set to not allowing booting from the A drive and then password protecting the BIOS setup, but as we all know EVERY BIOS password has a back-door!!

Well, actually, the British Royal Navy DIDN'T know about backdoor BIOS passwords until I showed them! Made them think!!!

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