Thank you. That was helpful.
If anyone else needs the same solution as described in my original post, I modified the solution: ASP.NET Forms Authentication, Part 2.
http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2003/01/20/formsauthp2.html
What I didn't realize is that the solution will work ALSO if authenticaion mode is set to "WINDOWS".
So I didn't need to pass any of my own 401 - yada yada yada...
I kept my current Windows authentication that automatically checks for users in my database.
If the user's ID isn't found, I send them to the Login.aspx solution described above. When the user enters correct credentials it sends them to the default.aspx - which you can write your own logic to override the automatic Windows authentication and take the user to the main page.
All I needed was some clean VB which the convertor provided for me.
If you or anyone would like more details, I'd be happy to provide them - just post your request here.