I tried logging in to my wife's Dell laptop in Safe Mode in order to install Windows XP Service Pack 3. Although the login screen works OK in normal mode the login screen shows no users in the right hand half of the log in screen. Can anybody offer any advice please? We do not have an XP installation disc.

There should be no reason to use Safe Mode to install SP3.

Just use Windows Update.


As to your question however:

To log on to the Administrator account using Windows XP Home Edition, first make sure that your system is not set up to bypass the logon screen. (Bypassing the Logon Screen) Then press F8 while booting and choose Safe Mode from the menu that appears.

If you have “Bypassing the Logon Screen” turned on here's how to turn it off:

1. At a command prompt, type, “control userpasswords2” and press “Enter”. Doing so launches the Windows 2000-style User Accounts application.
2. On the “Users tab”, check the “Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer” check box and then click OK.

After you’ve logged on as Administrator and finished whatever you wanted to do, you can uncheck the box in step 2 above to turn “Bypassing the Logon Screen” option.

I don’t know why this is necessary only that it is the suggested procedure for Windows XP Home users who want to logon to their Administrator account.

Many thanks for your reply jephree. I initially tried to use Windows Update to install SP3 but the installation hung at a late stage. The same thing had happened previously with our other laptop and I was advised by Microsoft to use a self extracting copy of SP3 from their website and to install it in Safe Mode. This worked perfectly with the first laptop.

I have now solved the problem with logging in to Safe Mode on my wife's laptop by uninstalling Windows Steady State. The login screen then became visible in Safe Mode, showing only the accounts with Administrator status. I used one of these to log in and install SP3 and all is now well.

Thanks for the update.

Let us know if we can help further in the future.