Admin Login Screen Gone; I did it
 

Hello, I'm a new newbie. I edited the code in the "auth.tpl" to basically get rid of authentication (from now on I'll read the forums to find solutions).

I kept the table html, but deleted the form to log in, then, I figured, I could just write some text in there--I've compiled to edit text in templates. Now the short text I wrote comes up in the login section of the Admin homepage, and I can't login because there is no login screen.

I tried replacing the saved "auth.tpl" manually, but though the code is the original, my login remains absent both for customer and admin home pages. I've tried re-booting. And even swapped the skin1 original folder
with the skin1 folder. When I did that the original "header.tpl" and other color elements came up--which I'd changed--but my login area remained the same, absent except for the bit of text I put in to test my freed area, serving now only to mock me.

thanks for any ideas Flatline

try running cleanup.php or if it dead run install.php again to rebuild your skin files

Thanks Shan, I reinstalled skins and that re-installed the login screens.