Blank Welcome Screen in Windows XP Pro

[Martin]

One of my home systems, running Windows XP Pro, now has a blank Welcome
Screen. It used to show the Family user account - with User privileges
- and the Administrator account (using the standard registry tweak).
Now, none of these accounts are displayed. Ctrl-Alt-Del has no effect.
Starting Windows in Safe mode or even Safe Mode with Command Prompt
has no effect; Windows still stops at the blank Welcome screen. I
tried restoring to the last known good configuration; still stuck.

I should also add that it is a dual-boot machine. Windows 98 runs on a
small C drive partition, there is a large D drive FAT-32 partition for
all the data files, and a 10 GB E drive partition with Windows XP. I've
booted Windows 98 and it works but I can barely remember how to use it;
there is no virus protection, and who wants to go back anyway.

I have managed to boot off the Windows XP CD and load the recovery
console. It gives me access to the E drive and I can see the files are
there and there is still plenty of disk space on the E drive. However,
I'm not sure where to go from here. I'd like to poke around the
registry but don't expect that regedit.exe will work.

I'm looking for ideas to try when I get home from work tonight. Help!!!


Oh yes, the last time it worked was when my teenaged daughter was using
it on MSN and thought that she got a virus from a friend - despite
Norton anti-virus 2002 being installed and virus definitions
up-to-date.

Thanks for any ideas. /Martin

 

[Malke]

One of my home systems, running Windows XP Pro, now has a blank
Welcome
Screen. It used to show the Family user account - with User
privileges - and the Administrator account (using the standard
registry tweak).
Now, none of these accounts are displayed. Ctrl-Alt-Del has no
effect.
Starting Windows in Safe mode or even Safe Mode with Command Prompt
has no effect; Windows still stops at the blank Welcome screen. I
tried restoring to the last known good configuration; still stuck.

I should also add that it is a dual-boot machine. Windows 98 runs on
a small C drive partition, there is a large D drive FAT-32 partition
for all the data files, and a 10 GB E drive partition with Windows XP.
I've booted Windows 98 and it works but I can barely remember how to
use it; there is no virus protection, and who wants to go back anyway.

I have managed to boot off the Windows XP CD and load the recovery
console. It gives me access to the E drive and I can see the files
are
there and there is still plenty of disk space on the E drive.
However,
I'm not sure where to go from here. I'd like to poke around the
registry but don't expect that regedit.exe will work.

Oh yes, the last time it worked was when my teenaged daughter was
using it on MSN and thought that she got a virus from a friend -
despite Norton anti-virus 2002 being installed and virus definitions
up-to-date.

You have a seriously obsolete antivirus installed. Even though your
subscription may be current and the definitions updated, the program
engine is nearly 5 years old. After you get your problems resolved, get
a current version av (not earlier than 2005) and install it after
uninstalling the old one. There is a very good chance that your
computer is infected, particularly since your daughter doesn't practice
safe behavior with instant messaging clients. Unfortunately, since you
can't get into Safe Mode your options are limited.

If the problem is that the winlogon userinit string has been replaced by
malware, you might be able to the Recovery Console to fix it. The
problem is that you can't see if this is the case and if it is, what
the malware name is. Refer to this information by MVP Kelly Theriot for
suggestions.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_wel_screen.htm

It might be better to make a Bart's PE and boot the machine with it to
see what is really happening on your system.

All of those fixes take a fair amount of computer skills and you know
yourself best. If this isn't your cup of tea, you can either 1) back up
your data and format/clean install; 2) take the machine to a
professional computer repair shop.

http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#reinstall_Windows - What
you will need on-hand

Afterwards, refer to these sites about practicing "Safe Hex" and have
your daughter read them, too:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=27971 - So How Did I Get
Infected Anyway?
http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Introduction
http://www.claymania.com/safe-hex.html
http://www.aumha.org/a/parasite.htm - The Parasite Fight
http://msmvps.com/blogs/harrywaldron/archive/2006/02/05/82584.aspx - MVP
Harry Waldron - The Family PC - How to stay safe on the Internet
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm - Eric Howes on
Rogue Antispyware Programs

Malke

 

[Martin]

Thanks for the info. Bart's PE looks promising and I'll give it a
whirl. I'm fairly adept with digging into system problems but I also
know how much time it takes to fix these things.

The only item that looked like it might describe my situation in
Kelly's Korner is the one near the end about "Windows XP stops
responding at the welcome screen". I'll see if there is an option to
delete the restoration data when I boot up into "Safe Mode".

If all else fails I do have a ghost image of the E drive. The image is
a year old though, and although I haven't installed much on that system
in the last year, I don't want to revert back to it just yet.

I will follow your advice on anti-virus protection but it does get
expensive since I also have two other daughters with laptops at
university. I need a group rate!

/Martin

 

[Malke]

Thanks for the info. Bart's PE looks promising and I'll give it a
whirl. I'm fairly adept with digging into system problems but I also
know how much time it takes to fix these things.

The only item that looked like it might describe my situation in
Kelly's Korner is the one near the end about "Windows XP stops
responding at the welcome screen". I'll see if there is an option to
delete the restoration data when I boot up into "Safe Mode".

If all else fails I do have a ghost image of the E drive. The image
is a year old though, and although I haven't installed much on that
system in the last year, I don't want to revert back to it just yet.

I will follow your advice on anti-virus protection but it does get
expensive since I also have two other daughters with laptops at
university. I need a group rate!

Then look into using F-Prot, which is what I use on my (numerous!)
Windows machines. It's $30/year and you can put it on 5 computers. For
corporate use, $50/year will let you install on 10 workstations.

Malke

 

[Martin]

Thanks for the recommendation. It's going to be F-Prot for me.
/Martin