on a Windows machine, which can have custom settings, policies, and other things. It has to log into a server part to become a user, except for peer to peer networking where it is treated as a virtual user. Each profile has a password assigned to it, no password is just a blank password on Windows 9X/ME and on those machines one can simply hit "Cancel" to log in on the default profile on the login box. The server password may be different than the profile password. There are ways around policies in 9X/ME, like removing the group policies program, or tweaking the registry to no longer load it. This makes Windows security a joke.