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I'm relatively new to server administration. I'm having a problem with server logins from the Windows 7 desktop.

Up until recently, Windows 7 logged users onto the server automatically. But for the past few weeks, users have been intermittently getting a login dialog saying that the system had detected an attempt to breach security. The dialog has the usual user name and password boxes, so we have simply been logging in manually when that happens. Suddenly, users aren't getting a login box at all. They are getting an error message saying their user name is not recognized, with no boxes for entering user credentials.

Can someone tell me what's going on? Any suggestions where to look to learn more about this problem? Thanks.

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This is a weird issue. Are these truly domain accounts or local accounts? If they're domain accounts, automatic logons is a hacky thing to do and really nullifies ANY security you may have setup on your network. – GregD Sep 2 '10 at 23:10

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I suspect there is a problem with DNS. The event log likely has CIFS errors and netlogon errors. Verify that the windows 7 workstations are using the right DNS server. I've seen this happen when the credentials were cached and a domain controller was improperly demoted. It all seemed to work becasue of the cached credentials but the DC used was no longer able to authenticate.

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