cant log on

[weibring]

hope someone can helpme. recently i helped my 70yr old father go from dial
up to broadband, also put some more ram in his HP, rebooted computer and it
auto downloaded sp2, when it was finished, it would not let me log into his
user account!! now i cant access it at all for him, would appreciate some
expert help. win xp home..1.2g 356ram

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

hope someone can helpme. recently i helped my 70yr old father go from dial
up to broadband, also put some more ram in his HP, rebooted computer and
it
auto downloaded sp2, when it was finished, it would not let me log into
his
user account!! now i cant access it at all for him, would appreciate some
expert help. win xp home..1.2g 356ram

Hard to say - you really need to tell us what happens when you try to log
on.

 

[weibring]

sorry my first time posting...it asks for my user password then says "saving
your settings", then comes back to logon account again and again...well you
get the pont right...thanks

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

This phenomenon happens when Windows is unable to locate the file
userinit.exe. This could happen for any of the following reasons:
- The file no longer exists.
- It is not where it should be.
- The registry points to the wrong location for this file.

There are two underlying causes for this event:
a) The user has manipulated his partitions (unlikely in your father's case)
b) Malware.

I'm not aware of a simple quick-fix for this problem. The usual remedy
requires one or several of the following:
- Booting the machine with a Bart PE boot CD in order to restore
userinit.exe and the matching registry entry.
- Connecting the disk as a slave disk to some other PC in order to perform
these actions.
- Creating a network connection between the problem machine and another
WinXP/2000 machine in order to perform these actions.

If you don't have the experience and/or tools mentioned above then your best
bet might be to ask a computer service shop to assist you.

 

[JS]

Try the following, it may or may not work for your specific problem.

There is a hidden 'Administrator' account (the account name is:
Administrator) in Windows.
The default password for this hidden account is normally blank (none).

For XP Home users:
Boot the computer into Safe Mode
Do this by pressing the F8 key (several times) after the Power On Self Test
is finished, until the Start menu appears.
This will get you to the correct menu window.
Once in Safe Mode, you will see the normally hidden Administrator account
and any other accounts.
(Note: Accounts are displayed alphabetically).
Use the mouse or Up/down arrow keys to highlight the 'Administrator'
account.
The default password is a blank (no password required).

 

[weibring]

thanks i'll try that straight away. if i cant access that through safe mode,
i guess im looking at a repair to console? or what pegasus has suggested. i'm
computer literate so im able to understand what has been suggested, just
never done it before. again many thanks to all

 

[weibring]

well, no luck. tried through safe mode, and got the admin logon to come up
but when i clicked on it it just went back to logon again!!! any one have any
ideas

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

This is what I expected. Since the problem is most likely caused by the
userinit.exe issue, it affects all accounts equally.