After a day of accepting my passwords, Vista stopped accepting my passwords. I’ve already spent over $200 on this system. Therefore, is there a way to get Vista to recognize my passwords without buying yet another program? After shutting down and starting back up, something happened, but what? I’ve noticed that this is a serious problem with many people. Please help. 
I think you’re saying that the computer no longer remembers passwords that you use to log into different Web pages - if this isn’t the case, please let us know.
You’re not alone with this problem - many users have complained about not being able to save usernames and passwords. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that anyone has come up with a surefire solution - not even Microsoft. The best advice I can give you is to troubleshoot the problem with the following solutions and see if one of these works for you.
Troubleshooting Password Problems
Do you have your Microsoft Windows Firewall working along with a third party antivirus/firewall program? If so, you should disable your Microsoft Windows Firewall because the two firewalls could be causing a conflict. To do this, go to Start and then Control Panel. Go to Security and then to Firewall and choose the option to turn it off. Only do this if you have another firewall installed on your system.
One user said that Administrators in Vista can’t save passwords, but I have not been able to verify this. Try getting in as a regular user rather than as an administrator and see if that makes a difference.
Go to C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Protect. Delete the Protect folder and this oftentimes will solve the password problem.
Utilize Vista’s User Account Control feature. Go to Start and type in: user accounts. Click Enter. Choose “Manage Network Passwords” on the side menu. Select Add and fill out the ‘Stored Credential Properties’. You will need to enter the server name - you don’t need a domain name if you have a single domain environment - and the domain\\username’s password.
If you are using Firefox, you can check the file that stores the cookies, which are the pieces that enable the website to remember your password. Go to Start and in the Start Search box, type in: %APPDATA\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles . You will see a list of profiles. Rename cookies.sqlite to cookies.tmp. Restart Firefox and see if it will remember the passwords. If you can’t find the files, they may be hidden. Go to Control Panel and choose Folder Options and then View. Under “Hidden Files and Folders”, select “Show hidden files and folders”. This will let you see everything that is hidden.
Internet Explorer Security Settings
In addition, your Internet Options may be responsible. Go into Internet Explorer and click Tools > Internet Options. Click the Security tab. Click Custom Level and scroll down to User Authentication. Does it say “Prompt for user name and password”? If so, change it to Automatic logon with current user name and password. Deleting Web histories and cookies can also remove your stored user name and password combinations. If you frequently clear your history, this could be part of the problem. Internet Explorer 8.0 now has an option for preserving the cookies and temporary files of Web sites that you have in your Favorites folder.
I wish I had a surefire solution for you, but hopefully one of these things will put you on the right track.
Kat Delong | June 19th, 2009
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