I acquired a used PC with Windows XP.

Problem 1.

At startup it displays an error message that the user can't be logged in. It is a user that doesn't exist. It seems there is a startup routine that I can't seem to find that tries to start up a user that no longer exists.

Problem 2.

If I just say OK, it bypasses the user and starts up, displays properly and works in all respects except one. Once again there seems to be a hidden application that is working the background that tries to connect to a remote server. I am told that this machine used to be used to pull data from a weather forecast service. The issue is that I can not get the machine to connect to an internet connection. It seems to want to communicate only through that remote connection. The machine is communicating in all other respects. I can ping other devices from the PC. The PC will not respond to a ping.

I have uninstalled every program except Windows.

Question for both is how do I shut the applications down?