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There was (and still is) misconception regarding that screen. That screen is for authenticating on the network. I believe you could also just close the dialog. It’s not for authenticating a local user account. Failing to authenticate you just couldn’t access network shares.


I believe that depends on the configuration.

The error dialog in the gif when Cancel is pressed does say "You cannot use Windows unless your login name is validated by the network."


We very much for sure used this trick (and others) to go around network authentication back in college days: we had individual network accounts and only the admin had a local account. Poor fella ended giving up cleaning our mIRC and Starcraft installs.


mIRC and Starcraft. Man I miss those days.


I recall being able to just cancel that dialog back in the day. There was a group policy to require network authentication added at some point, but I don't know when.


Yeah. I swear you could just hit escape at that screen.


You can if the GPO is not set. Source: just tested on my Compaq AiO CRT on reserve duty as a floppy to continuous paper printer adapter


Nope, I did that on a college computer, with no one logged in. I'm pretty sure it was Windows NT (not 95).

Just messed around until I found that accidentally, and I was able to run commands.

It would have been around 18 years ago, something like that.




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