How can we re-enable automatic login?

Question

My husband likes to have automatic login, and has always used it on his laptop. The computer belongs to his employer; yesterday, it wouldn't accept his login at all, and when he got it back from IT an hour later, there was a new account on it (the IT's, I guess, since it was named "Maintenance"), and both it and his own account were now called "admin, managed". The Guest Account was changed to "disabled". I have an admin account on that computer too, which I never use except to help him out, and it was unchanged. I was able to use this to turn off the "managed" part by turning off the Parental Controls checkbox on his account. But logging back into his account, now a simple "admin", did not allow me to re-enable the automatic login. (I couldn't do it from my own account, either.)
Present condition: (On a Macbook Pro, running OS 10.6.8).
1. In System Preferences, in the Security Pane (after clicking the lock and entering the password), the first checkbox under "For all accounts on this computer:" is the one to "Disable automatic login". This box is checked AND GRAYED OUT. It cannot be changed. The 4 boxes under that are all live and checked (to require a password to unlock each pane, to log out after inactivity, to use secure virtual memory, and to automatically update the safe downloads list).
2. In the Accounts Pane, clicking on Login Options (with the lock opened), the top line, "Automatic login:" is set to "off", and GRAYED OUT. It too cannot be changed. Other options are also grayed out: can't show the Restart etc. buttons, or show the fast user switching menu.
This is true on our home network, so it isn't something enforced by the employer's network, at least, not directly.
Filevault isn't on, by the way, and never has been.
Is this a condition set by a terminal command by IT? If so, how do we bypass it? It's more of a nuisance this way than anything serious, but an adnimistrator account ought to be able to access all the options, right? (And we have no idea why he couldn't log in in the first place, which started this whole mess.) All suggestions will be welcome.
Susan K

Answer 1

Forgive what may be a dumb question on my part, but did you click the lock icon at the lower-left of the Accounts pane to unlock it? You can't change those settings until the pane is unlocked, which you should be able to do if you have adminstrator privileges unless his company has in some way locked off those settings, something which may well be company policy.
Hope this helps.