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automatic logon to website does not work

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raygg

Technical User
Jun 14, 2000
397
US
First I am brand new to win7 and do not have it installed. I volunteer at a library providing a free service to assist computer challenged patrons to use computers. I had a problem yesterday I could not solve.

A person with a recently purchased laptop with Win7 Home prem could not logon to yahoo mail where he has an account. When he bought the laptop just recently a staffer at the computer store (not a big box store) which is part of a respected computer store chain (not the Shack) installed an icon on his desktop that would automatically logon him onto his yahoo mail account. Except it did not work - as soon as it opened yahoo mail it failed somehow and went to an error screen that had messages that showed the logon failed. I did not write down the messages and do not remember what they said - but it was a website message not an OS message. The patron said that with his old computer he could logon to that yahoo account ok.

I tried to access the yahoo mail account by closing and opening IE and navigating to yahoo mail - but even with that approach as soon a I got to yahoo mail the same thing happened where I was diverted to the same error screen, effectively preventing a logon to the account. From there I could not navigate to yahoo mail.

The desktop icon referenced a dos text file with two lines: one line with the logon id in the format "logon <logonid>" and a password line with the contents "password <password>". I altered the name of this file so whatever was triggering the logon would fail assuming that some event detection program would not find the logon and password and thus would fail to identify the account.

I then rebooted and opened IE and navigated to yahoo mail but as soon as I got to yahoo mail it went to the same error as before.

At that point I was stumped as to what may be triggering this activity. I have never seen an icon created on a desktop before that will get you to a website and then logon with the correct password. Ityook the easy way out and suggested to the patron to take the laptop back to the guy at the store.

I am knowledgeable about how to use DOS cmds and desktop icons in previous versions of windows but not knowing W7 I do not know if some special feature is being used to do this.

I would like to know how this logon using an icon and some other feature or program is done.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
Here's what I'd suggest doing:
1. Download CCleaner from 2. Install CCleaner
3. Run it with default settings
4. copy out whatever info you need from the DOS batch file, and then delete that file altogether. Not sure why in the world someone would use DOS batch file for logging into a website - seems it'd be more trouble than anything in the long run - as you seem to have found.
6. Clean the registry with CCleaner
5. Reboot the machine after cleaning everything out.
6. Try to navigate to Yahoo.com, then click email, and see what you get - if you can then see a normal screen, then problem fixed. If not, it may be worth (easy solution - maybe) just downloading a different browser - Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Try with them.
7. Whatever browser you end up with, once you get the yahoo page to load correctly, use the browser's built-in functions to remember the login name and password - it should prompt you.

The other possibility I can think of is this batch file may have caused enough problems to somehow have blacklisted the laptops IP address or something... but I doubt it. My guess is there is some other setting causing the issues, so if you can't narrow down the culprit, then an alternative browser should fix the issue.
 
kjv, the laptop is nowhere near him anymore,

Ityook the easy way out and suggested to the patron to take the laptop back to the guy at the store.
So all those actions are kind of pointless.

Anyway, in cases like these, its always a good Idea to try with another browser, or even another PC, to rule out a problem with the actual website.

Also most websites now offer the log-me-in or keep-me-logged-in feature whereby the site stores a cookie on the machine, and upon opening the website it can read the cookie and automatically log in to it. If the password is wrong, it may be unable to do so.

In which case deleting the offending cookie and recreating it from the website would fix that issue.

If the auto login works setting a shortcut on the desktop that points to the website, would make it load and automatically login to it.

As far the shortcut and file, posting the contents here so we can take a look, so we can tell you what they were doing.

Just copy and paste their contents between [ignore]
Code:
[/ignore] tags.


----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.
 
Ignore the part of costing the contents of shortcut. I told kjv about it, and then went and did the same thing ha! Sorry about that.

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.
 
Yeah, somehow I read that, but yet didn't process it. DOES NOT COMPUTE! [blush]
 
Yahoo Mail may have been the problem yesterday (Jan. 4). I saw a separate post on TT regarding getting a blank screen instead of the Inbox after logging in.

I also had a friend who could not log in to his account. He cleared his cookies, temp files, and history and still could not log in. 4 hours later all was well with the world of Yahoo Mail.

Hope this helps.

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My daughter just had a problem with logging in to her password protected portion of a website called "Pogo". (I think that it is the #1 site for malware!). Anyway, she could log into the regular section, but not the password part. She had to go upstairs to the old X.P. computer to play her games. Her son finally solved it by installing Chrome! Apparently something between Win 7, and I.E. doesn't like the site! I didn't try "Compatibility" or anything - she is happy, and I don't have to mess with it!!!
 
Pogo.com is a clean site. It is part of Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) which is a publicly traded global corporation.

It's one of the sites one of my clients allow on their network outside of normal business hours. They've never had any issues with it.

Hope this helps.

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cmeagan656:
I don't use the site "Pogo". What I was going by, is that every 6 months or so, they bring the s l o w computers over for me to clean up. After running anti-malware programs, I find 50 to 100 "indications". The majority of which are noted as coming from Pogo. After cleaning these up, the computers are back to normal speed.
 
micker377:
The Java cache builds up pretty fast because all the games are Java based. I run scheduled tasks to clear the Java cache and defrag the drives once a month, after the MS updates have completed. For this particular client I also block 3rd party cookies.

Hope this helps.

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Canadian members check out Tek-Tips in Canada for socializing, networking, and anything non-technical.
 
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