For the past 3 days I've had an issue that is pretty intermittent. If I lock my workstation or if the workstation is idle and gets locked I will move the mouse or push a key to show the screen that says "Press CTRL + ALT + Delete .... domain/User is logged in". When I hit CTRL+ALT+DEL the screen changes to what would be the screen to enter your password to unlock except for, it's blank. There is no field to enter my password, the is no text or profile picture. It's just the login background. If I do nothing, eventually it will go back the the locked screen. The only option I have is to hard boot the machine and log back in. Of course I've tried to reproduce this but I can't. It's happened 4 times over the last 3 days. I have searched the Event Log and haven't really found anything of value. I am the only user at this time experiencing this issue so I believe it's localized to my machine. Any info helps! Thanks, Craig

You could be having a secure channel password issue. I would remove the computer from the domain then delete the computer account if you want to do it quickly or you can use the netdom command to reset the secure channel. Another thing to look at is the possibility that your network card is being turned off by power management so, I would check this out as well. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/837058 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee617165(v=ws.10).aspx

I just went ahead and removed the computer from the domain, deleted the computer account, rejoined the computer and moved to the appropriate group as before. I will see if the issues continue.. It's so weird because it's not something I can reproduce, it just happens. For example, I came to work today after letting the computer be idle and locked all night, no issue logging in. Very weird because 2 days before when I came in, I couldn't log in. Since this computer is part of a domain, power management is being controlled by group policy. Nothing has been changed power management wise or in group policy for a long time. So I don't believe the network card is shutting off unless, it's actually dying.

Power Management can still be controlled locally on the workstation even if it is part of the domain.

I guess you are right. On this particular workstation it could be adjusted because I am the site admin. Other workstations it shouldn't be possible because power management access has been removed. However, that being said I am the only one that uses this workstation and to my knowledge nothing has been changed. No updates applied, no software removed or installed when this started happening. I really appreciate your help though. Thank you!

Unfortunately it happened again this morning when I got to work. Walked in CTRL + ALT + DEL and I got a blank login screen with nothing on it. Again only option was to hard boot it.. What should I be looking at now? *Update* I went ahead and removed my computer from the domain once again. I renamed it and then joined it back to the domain. Not sure if that will have any impact but we will see.

Hi Craig.Sorensen, If issue persists, please check whether the value of the registry key <Hkey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\RPCSS\ObjectName > is set to < NT Authority\NetworkService >. If not, please change it and see how it works. Note: Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, please refer to How to back up and restore the registry in Windows. Hope this helps. Jeremy Wu TechNet Community Support

I've been monitoring this issue this week. I've made a few changes and I thought it was gone however... it just happened again this morning. Heres what I've done. My computer usually doesn't shut down every night and the problem would happen. I set it to turn off every night at 11:59pm. If it turns off I am able to make it through the day with no issues. From 8am to 5-6pm I can lock the computer and unlock the computer at will. I applied some windows updates that I thought might fix the issue. I've checked the registry key that was provided up above and it was set correctly already, no changes made. I set my computer back to not shutdown at night and I came in this morning to find...... CTRL+ALT+DEL ---> No login prompt. :( Any other ideas? I need this computer to stay on all the time so that I can have remote access to our network in case of emergencies! Thanks, Craig

Hi Craig, I would like to know verify the following information: 1. If you evict the computer from domain, does the same issue occur? 2. If you just put the password and press enter regardless the black screen, can you logon? (I mean I treat it as a display issue). 3. Please delete the profile of this user and then recreate to see if this can help. 4. Please also apply the following hotfix if Windows 7 SP1 is not applied: The desktop stops responding for some time after you resume the display on a computer that is running Windows 7 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2300639 5. Please also check if the following link helps: Windows Vista and Windows 7 Black Screen on Computer Unlock http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2431700/en-US Thanks. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

After giving the issue some more time, I don't think it has to do with the actual login process. I've had the computer lock up on my twice while actually using it. After restarting the computer and looking at the event viewer it looks very similar to when I can't login. What happens is the current window will become unresponsive. Mouse still works, keyboard still functions. The more things I click on, the more things quit responding until eventually I just have to hard reboot the machine. So this leads me to believe it's not the actual login process failing. Here are answers to the above questions anyway. 1. This is my personal worstation and I can't use it off the domain for a long period of time. So I couldn't test this. 2. Does not login even if typing the password 3. I haven't deleted the profile yet since I discovered the computer going unresponsive. Still might try this. 4. I've got SP1 installed. At this point, I am almost ready to start the format and reinstall process. It sucks because I have soooo many programs loaded on this PC. Anyway, let me know if anything I said triggers any other ideas. Like I said, logs are pretty much blank.

Do you have following setting enabled in your GPOs Interactive logon: Require Domain Controller authentication to unlock workstation If you do then there is a possibility that your domain controller may have not be available temporarly. I would check event viewer for netlogon errors.

Hi , I would suggest you delete the profile and see how it goes. Besides, I would suggest you perform a in-place upgrade instead of reinstall as it may keep your current programs. For more information, please see: How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 & Windows Server 2008 R2 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2255099 Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.