Windows Automatically Logs Me off

Welcome to Major Geeks!

There is really not too much we can do to help you with any malware problems until you can get properly logged into Windows. It may be best for you to work the inability to login via our Software Forum; but I will get you pointed in the right direction.

You are going to need your Windows XP Home SP2 boot disk. It has to be a bootable version of the Windows CD and not a factory recovery disk that restores you to the way your PC was shipped. If you don't have one, you either need to borrow one (the same version and type, that is WinXP Home SP2) or you will need to buy one. You need the bootable CD to get to the Windows Recovery Console where you can attempt to repair your problem. This problem can be cause by a couple of issues:

1. Your C:\Windows\System32\userinit.exe file has either been deleted or is corrupted.
2. The registry key that loads userinit.exe at startup has been deleted or has been modified and the userinit.exe file is not in the key and therefore does not run.

The respective fixes would be:

1. boot to the recovery console and copy the userinit.exe file from your CD to the C:\Windows\System32 folder of your hard disk
2. Run this procedure: How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting

There are other method that are sometimes used where people create Linux boot CD or using Ultimate Boot CD Windows (UBCDWin - which still requires your Windows CD to make this CD) however this is outside the scope of the Malware Forum.

 

Yes I understood this and I was still telling you what the potentional problems and fixes are and that is still the same. It does not matter how you got there.

Not recently but things like this will happen especially if malware gets in that infects the userinit.exe file or the registry key associated with it. Possibly an improper removal of an entry in the below registry key:

Yes but the fixes will still be what I gave you. The other alternatives are a factory recovery (you loose everything you have) or a repair install/rebuild. Some one in the Software Forum should be able to help you with this. You should reference this thread by copying and posting in the below which will link them here:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=151854

 

It tells you that the file is there but it does not prove that it is not corrupted. However I would bet the file is okay and that it is a registry issue which is the cause for your problem.

I don't know where on the CD you were looking, but it should be in the \i386 folder of the CD; however it will probably be compresses into a file named userinit.ex_ Yes the underscore is correct. You would have to expand the file using the expand command. This is a topic for the Software Forum as already mentioned. But I still think your best bet is option 2 from my first message.

Actually this UBCD4Win is more useful and can even make doing the registry fix from Microsoft easier.

 

Without the logs I cannot help you fix your PC. If you edit the logs then any place I need to give you a fix that refers to a path to a file may result in an automatic fix or registry patch not working. User names appearing in a log are really not issues. How is some one going to learn anything personal from just seeing a name in a log? However I do know that some people are just worried about this and my answer is that you should never have used personally identifiable user names to begin with which is mentioned in the below link in step 14:

How to Protect yourself from malware!

 

Without seeing all of your problems it is hard to comment. However some malware's sole purpose is to install more malware. Thus over a period of time, more and more can be found. Certain malware gets quite annoyed when you try to remove it and if you don't get all of it at once, they slap your hand by mutating and spreading even more. And in addition to above, some malware will automatically spread each time you powerdown or powerup (this includes just rebooting).