Not able to login (XP Home)

mustang10 · Mar 24, 2005

My brothers computer was full of garbage (webrebates, bargains, trojans, etc due to the typical ignorance of no firewall on a cable modem ) so I downloaded ad-aware 6 and startup mechanic to fix some of the problems. I also went into msconfig and disabled ALL startup items (read this in another forum) so I could delete some folders which I couldn't delete due to being in use. All went well (I enabled XP firewall which is better then nothing) and the computer was running like a champ.

We went to the movies came home and the computer has an issue, it wont let me login! I get to the screen where you chose a user, I click on my brothers account enter the password and it logs in, you see his background picture and it immediately does a saves settings and logs out! I tried the other account and the same thing happens.

I tried booting in safemode but I get the same thing even on the admin account which isn't password protected. He just moved and he can't find his system disk (even if he hadn't just moved he wouldn't be able to find it ) otherwise I would just boot from the cd. If I don't find a way to fix this I'm going to have buy him XP home upgrade disk and I really don't wont to be out the 90 bucks.

signed,
a little knowledge can be VERY dangerous

Turcoloco · Mar 24, 2005

Yikes, sounds like your 'user initialization' process (takes place after login) has been disabled or corrupted. 'Recovery Console' might help, if not....

This happened on a friend's XP Pro machine, nothing seemed to work around the problem and since he didn't have the admin password, we couldn't do system recovery, ended up re-installing the OS.
Someone might have a better answer but either way, good luck.

Adrynalyne · Mar 24, 2005

Where there is a will, there is a way.

I have three probable solutions for you.

The first:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

The second:
Go to Recovery Console as mentioned by Turc, and rename C:\windows\system32\userinit.exe to wsaupdater.exe

Then. if you can boot, fix this registry entry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
On the right, look for Userinit. THe value needs to be corrected to read:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe,

Include the comma! Reboot back to recovery console and rename wsaupdater.exe back to userinit.exe.

Reboot and test for resolution.

The third is a write up from a coleague i used to work with that was posted on the Ad Aware forum a long time ago, and has since disappeared. However, I found it 'stolen' on another site. It does work, I've done it.

I haven´t tested this. I used a similar method on a customer´s computer and it worked.

Second NOTE: Most of these steps assume that Windows is installed to C:\windows.
If your installation is not in C:\windows, then please change the paths in my instructions
to where your installation is.

OK, I just had a customer that had this problem and here is how I resolved it. I
limited the steps some to (hopefully) make it easier.

First things first get to recovery console using previous methods provided. If you
are unsure of how to get to recovery console look at the previous methods of resolving
this problem and they explain it.

OK, now that we are at recovery console, we need to replace the software hive with
a previous good backup. It should look something like this:
C:\windows>cd system32\config
C:\windows\system32\config>ren software software.old
This renames the current software hive to software.old
C:\windows\system32\config>copy C:\windows\repair\software
It should say "1 file(s) copied"
NOTE: After the next step you will want to remove the cd, then boot into safe mode.
If you do not boot into safe mode in Windows XP it may prompt you to reactivate and
you may not be able to get into Windows.

C:\windows\system32\config>exit

Now hit the F8 key and boot into safe mode. Logon to the administrator account when
you reach the welcome screen. Hopefully you will be able to logon.

Now we need to edit your old registry to change the path to the userinit.exe file:
open regedit.exe
Highlight HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (note: this is important, if you do not highlight this
the next step will not work)
goto file - load hive...
Now select your old registry file which should be in C:\windows\system32\config\software.old
It will ask you what to name it, if you don´t understand, just type "test".
Now navigate to the following:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\microsoft\windows
nt\currentversion\winlogon.
Look at what the userinit value is. On my customer´s machine it was %system32%\userinit.exe
which is invalid.

NOTE: If you can, post what your value is when you look at this.

Next change the value to read C:\windows\system32\userinit.exe

Now close the registry editor, and we need to go back to recovery console to put
your original registry back which should look like this:
C:\windows>cd system32\config
C:\windows\system32\config>del software
C:\windows\system32\config>ren software.old software
C:\windows\system32\config>exit

This (in theory) should get you back into Windows.

Please post here what your results are so that we can have some good feedback on
the solution.

My theory is that Adaware SE is fixing the wsaupdater.exe problem, but it is setting
the value in the registry to %system32%\userinit.exe which does not work on all systems.

Let me know if this helps.
Click to expand...

He turned out to be correct.

Lavasoft updated their definitions like within 24 hours so that it wouldn't happen anymore.

Turcoloco · Mar 25, 2005

Very good info Adryn, weldone indeed! I hope he gets it to work.

I had a shorter hardcopy version of it which I was going to use on this guy's laptop but since couldn't even get in the Recovery Console, I told him to either buy a case of beer or a box of kleenex!

Adrynalyne · Mar 25, 2005

I would've told him to buy both

Adrynalyne · Mar 25, 2005

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q310994

If you have a floppy drive, these will contain the recovery console as well.

mustang10 · Mar 25, 2005

Adrynalyne ... Thanks for all the help. I'm going to try them today!

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