Hey, here's a string dealing with similar issues, sort of anyway. No answer.
I'm still looking for one. Maybe Jaelani can help. Here goes:
Try this:
When you get to the screen that now has no account login icons, carefully
press Ctrl-Alt-Del TWICE. That should bring up the old style Windows login
window. If you know the administrator account password, use that account.
If you can gain access, go to Control Panel, User Accounts, and see if your
old account is listed. If so, change the icon and change the password.
And, while your there, create a new user account with administrative rights
and NO password.
Etchin n' Sketch said:
I have a dilly of a problem. I cannont get access to my PC due to my missing
user accounts on the Start up. When windows boots, in the morning, and goes
to that blue welcome to windows screen, where you can choose Admin, and your
personal User accounts...thats where I cant go any further. There are simply
gone. I dont want to blame SP2, but I had just installed it about 10 days
priar. Ive tried BootCDs to repair my XP, no good...still need a user account
to log in. Ive tried, previous good configurations, no go......everything
else requires a user account.
Iam pretty good at keeping my PC clean of Ad-Adware and Viruses, so I dont
think that that is the reason of all this Guano. Any help would be so greatly
appreciated.
As far as getting the Welcome screen with the icons, open Control Panel,
User Accounts. Click Change the way user log on and off. Then check Welcome
Screen.
If the system is trying to logon and continue boot, but turns around and
logs off, I've only been able to correct this with a Repair install.
I haven't researched it lately, but it may be a problem with the
winlogon.exe file. It's a system file. Sorry, but I don't have anything
further on that.
David Curole said:
I have a simalar problem. My machine boots up to login like yours but I don't
have any other accounts. I can't get in to do anything. I clike to log on and
it logs right off again
If this is an OEM installation, only idea I can think of is:
At the login screen try Owner as the user, no password
As far as booting into Safe Mode, what login options are available when it
boots?
Unfortunately, Home edition limits user account creation to the Control
Panel applet or you could go into Computer Management like Professional.