Anyone have a stick of dynamite?

[Mogul]

Apparently Autoupdate did a malware security update to my XP PRO workstation.
Now I cannot log in. I get to logon prompt, no problem. But whether in SAFE
or NORMAL mode, when I enter password (any account, including admin, doesn't
matter) it starts to go then says "closing network connection" followed by
"saving settings" then back to the logon pane.
Been struggling with this now for about 3 days and am ready to blow the work
station up. It is July 4th, after all.
A little history ...
When the problem first occurred, I did a system restore to one of the
earliest set points. This fixed things and all was OK. Upon my first log out,
however, I received an "update pending" notice. I said OK to the update
(silly me) and the problem returned with the added bonus that a repeat system
restore would not work.
From researching things, it appeared I had a a corrupted userinit.exe. So in
Recovery Concole I expanded a new verion to my SYSTEM32 directory. From SAFE
mode I checked the registry to make certain the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\ was
pointing at C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe
Although all appeared OK, as I was exiting REGEDIT I noticed the WINLogon
setting had somehow changed to "REGISTRY". Don't ask how, I have no idea. It
was one of those "Damn! The keys are in the car as the door latch goes click"
kind of moments.
So now, I seem to be hosed completely. I cannot get into the registry to
correct the setting, cannot logon, cannot even get into the registry remotely
from my server or another PC on my network.
I honestly do not want to rebuild this workstation.
Any ideas?

 

[neil]

I had this problem on a PC I was asked to repair, it had virus's & spyware.
The only way to recover the system was to carry out a repair install. When
this completed the login was OK & the first message that appeared was
"windows had found & cleared an infected file". After that I installed AVG
Free and did a full scan in safemode before running any more windows updates
& this put the PC back into full working order.

Perhaps not what you want to hear, but maybe your only option.
Neil

 

[niknuk]

...
Any ideas?

Hi there!

In short ways: you need a tool to boot from CD/DVD and edit the registry offline?

Try this tool (it's freeware) http://download.winboard.org/details.php?file=89

Boot from the CD & fire up REGEDIT where you can fix your problem.

Greetz

 

[Mogul]

Eureka!
This may fix it. Going to give it a try.
Thanks a bunch!
- Mogul

 

[Mopeyone]

Not sure if this is what did it for you, but....

If you recently ran Spybot with an older version (like 1.3 or 1.4) then that
may be what has you in a looping logon. A little bug called "hellslittlespy"
changed a registry when it was deleted from your system by Spybot (so much
for spyware). Once you rebooted your computer was dead. If you were running
the latest version (which many of us didn't know existed) 1.5, you didn't get
this problem. See the discussion in this group under "Windows won't let me
in," or go directly to the Spybot discussion thread which has offered many
suggestions for how to fix: Here's the thread, with fixes (cut and paste to
access if hyperlink doesn't work):
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=30447

I got in using Method #2 of the Spybot solutions - many have regained access
using the Fix-It Utilities software also mentioned (I tried that first but it
didn't work for me).

Good luck! I spent all four days of my holiday weekend working on getting
this fixed on my computer. Now I need a vacation!

Mopeyone