The user name of password is incorrect

My question has to do with an unknown user. I have an HP computer running Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 Bit. It was a floor model at a local retail store. When I power the computer on it shows a button with the user name of “Kiosk” on it, and a message beneath that says, “The user name or password is incorrect”.

I do not have the password for user “Kiosk”. Apparently at the store, someone created another user called “Front”. User “Front” is an administrator.

I can click Switch User and two buttons appear. One is “Unknown” and the other is “Other User”.

I click Other User and it shows two boxes where I can type my user name and password. That takes me to a normal desktop.

I do not see the user “Kiosk” in User Accounts in the Control Panel.

I created another user that is an administrator, but I still have to go through the routine described above.

I looked in Safe Mode and didn’t find anything.

The computer is working well enough, but it’s annoying to get it started. I appreciate any tips or clues you might have to offer.

Thanks,

Tom

Welcome to the forums, Coast Ranger! Being it was a floor model, it has probably been used some. What you can do to clean all this up is to simply start over, and reinstall your OS to rid your system of these accounts. After powering on, push and hold F11, this takes you to the recovery partition. There, you will be given the choice of restoring your system to a specific point of time (restore point). That may give you the option to restore way back (before the creation of these users), but it may not, if system restore is turned off. If that's the case, you can reinstall your OS, and all of the system will be purged clean. It's really not hard to do, and requires little interaction on your part. When it finishes, you will be given the option to select automatic updating, and you may optionally register your computer with HP (recommended). I have a HP, too, and the process doesn't take very long (an hour or so). Best of luck to you.

Thanks Cat,

I know that's an option. However the guy that bought this computer installed a lot of applications already. Reloading Windows wouldn't take much, but the rest would. Any clue on correcting the problem?

I called the HP support line. A woman that I could not understand too well wanted to do a remote session. After 30 minutes of waiting for a connection to be established, I gave up. The time spent (90 minutes already) on the issue is rapidly approaching what it would take to do a reload.

Tom

Heres a nice little webpage that may help you
http://www.megaleecher.net/Easiest_W...inux_Computers

Things you will need to do:
1) you will need another computer with an internet connection, a blank cd, and a cd burner.
2) follow the directions on the webpage
3) once you bypass the password open a command prompt >> then type "net user admin password" with out quotations then press enter >>
there should now be a login profile with the username admin and the password is password

You can backup whatever software that was custom installed to an external hard drive, one of those small USB drives or DVD's, then do the reinstall. When you do the reinstall, you are given this opportunity. You can choose what you want to backup, you don't have to preserve everything. Too, as far as the HP reps, I had the same deal over a small issue. I ended up with a "chat" session to resolve my problem. Seems like personal service is a thing of the past, although it seems to me that it's easier to talk on the phone than to sit behind a keyboard all day. I certainly hope that Microsoft doesn't follow suit and do the same.

Sorry I guess I didn't read the whole message. For example I didn't know you could log on in the first place. Try opening the command prompt and type net user then press enter. Do you see Kiosk as one of the accounts? if so try a command such as net user Kiosk /delete and the user should be deleted. Catilley1092's advice is excellent though. But I don't think you can just "back up" installed software, what about the registry settings for those programs. Ignore my instructions for bypassing the password, I thought Kiosk was the only account and you couldn't even log onto the system. I will read the entire post from now on

Why can't you backup installed software? That's all the OS and it's components are, is software, or programs. It's all installed, once you are using it. You should be able to delete the accounts though, that I agree with. You may have to login as administrator to do this, that was my experience prior to Windows 7.

Ya I guess you should be able to move software programs, I just thought that some programs store settings in different parts of the Operating System like the registry. For example one time I tried to copy an installed program from my programs files folder onto another computer and it didn't work because it stored settings in more then just the folder where it was installed.

Has this question ever been solved. I have the same issue. Floor model computer, but my issue started when I set up another account just recently. Originally had one user account that was an ADMIN account. I set up a new ADMIN account, and made the original a STANDARD account. That is when the KIOSK account showed up. Can't find it to remove it, and have to go through the same basic steps listed below to get on the computer. Only deviation is, I have to log into the ADMIN account first, then log out to get to the STANDARD user account.

Whenever an account is created it requires a name. Based on that name, example Unknown, there are files and folders created under C:\USERS\Unknown. If that name is later changed to, for example Kiosk, the files and folders are NOT changed (And sometimes the old name appears in userid positions).

Normally the easiest thing to do is just rename it to it's original name & delete the account and then create a new one (Back up any data for that userid first if you want it).

One other issue of note is that there is an ADMIN account created (and hidden) by default in W7 so if you create a new account called ADMIN then the user file is named something else (C:\USERS\ADMIN1 ... I believe)

If this stuff gets all screwed up my suggestion would be to back up your data, reinstall the OS and then reinstall your programs and restore your data.