Answers to questions that previously either involved trips to the library, or consultations with a 20-years-out-of-date-30-volume set of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica can now be answered in a matter of seconds - minutes at most.

And this is good.

But eventually our questions become more complex, and the hard part now is not finding the answer, but knowing how to phrase the question.

For many people this is a challenge. Many people see asking questions as wrong, in some way. As if it makes them appear stupid. This is not true of course, but it is a perception built up from childhood.

Since repairing my computer after its little aneurism, it has refused to pop up the logon screen at startup. I'm on Windows 98 (2nd Edition), the only M$ operating system that I would recommend for a home system.

I know how to make the logon screen appear. I have the right protocols set, the password thing taken care of , ya-de-ya-de-ya-da.

If I log off, it will pop it up and log me in, so then I can access R's computer and she can access mine. This is useful for printing and peer-to-peer back ups etc.

Despite googling for the solution I was having no luck finding the answer, and it was becoming pretty clear that the way I was phrasing the question was wrong. Plenty of sites and articles could tell me how to turn the login prompt off, but I couldn't find any telling me how to turn the damn thing on.

Regedit time.

I start poking around the registry and find all the likely areas that it could be.

Then instead of typing in "How do I make windows 98 show the login prompt at startup?" I type in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Network"

And bingo, I find the answer. (Which, by the way, is to zap the AutoLogon value from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionNetworkReal Mode Net )

There were special, magic words I had to type in to get the answer I wanted, and I could not know these magical words unless I was 'worthy'.

The knowledge was protected from discovery by casual explorers, because if they did not know what they were doing, they could serious fu-fu their machine.

None of this was deliberate. It is just how the internet has evolved.

Buried out there somewhere is the true secret to life, the universe and everything.

As yet, I don't know how to phrase the question. Until I do, the answer (probably 42 :>) will be elusive and meaningless...

But my Kung Fu is strong. I walk the Path of the Questioner. All shall be revealed when the time is right.

INT 24H

CTRL-ALT-DEL

Ahhh-soooo.