restore window blank

[nor]

We have been troubleshooting a computer that was having trouble with the
administrator rights. With the help of a technician, we went to "msconfig"
and made some changes from the startup tab. When hitting apply, an error
message showed up in the System Configuration Window; "An access denied
error was returned while attempting to change a service. You may need to
long on using an administrator account to make the specified changes". We
clicked OK and rebooted the machine. The changes occurred. We were then
taken to Safe Mode where two users were seen, an Administrator and the name
of the computer owner. No matter what we did, the system configuration error
still occurred. We then did a system restore a couple of times. Finally,
when we did an restore point, windows appeared to boot OK but when we went
to the restore window again, it came up blank. Also the McAfee antivirus
center window came up blank so we were unable to make changes there.
Finally, the questions are, "did we hose the OS"?, "could this be a virus"?,
and "will a Windows XP repair correct things"? We also found that when the
mail page was brought up, the message section was blank. Thanks for any
input.

 

[Malke]

We have been troubleshooting a computer that was having trouble with
the administrator rights. With the help of a technician, we went to
"msconfig" and made some changes from the startup tab. When hitting
apply, an error message showed up in the System Configuration Window;
"An access denied error was returned while attempting to change a
service. You may need to long on using an administrator account to
make the specified changes". We clicked OK and rebooted the machine.
The changes occurred. We were then taken to Safe Mode where two users
were seen, an Administrator and the name of the computer owner. No
matter what we did, the system configuration error still occurred. We
then did a system restore a couple of times. Finally, when we did an
restore point, windows appeared to boot OK but when we went to the
restore window again, it came up blank. Also the McAfee antivirus
center window came up blank so we were unable to make changes there.
Finally, the questions are, "did we hose the OS"?, "could this be a
virus"?, and "will a Windows XP repair correct things"? We also found
that when the mail page was brought up, the message section was blank.
Thanks for any input.

1. You should find another technician because that one didn't know what
s/he was doing. You should *never* disable services from the System
Configuration Utility (msconfig). You were apparently trying to turn
off a service critical to the system and Windows was trying to save you
from yourself.

2. It is normal to see the Administrator account in Safe Mode. It is the
built-in Administrator account and can only be accessed from Safe Mode
in XP Home (which you apparently have).

3. There is no way for me to know if you "hosed the OS" because I don't
know a) what the original problems and the cause of those problems
were; b) what you disabled; c) what the state of Windows is now.

4. Certainly your computer could have a virus, but there is no way for
me to know that. The immediate symptoms you are reporting sound more
like you disabled something you shouldn't have. The way to see if you
have a virus is to scan with an antivirus program. Since you've
apparently broken McAfee, scan with David Lipman's Multi_AV:

http://www.ik-cs.com/multi-av.htm - how to use Dave Lipman's Multi-AV
http://www.ik-cs.com/programs/virtools/Multi_AV.exe - Multi-AV download
http://pcdid.com/Multi_AV.htm - additional Multi_AV instructions

It would be wise to go through these malware removal steps
systematically, doing all the preparatory work:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

5. It is possible that a Repair Install will fix things, but there's no
way I can answer that definitively - see my answer #3.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
How-To

Malke

 

[nor]

Thanks Malke for your reply. Sorry I couldn't be more explicit about the
problems. We are sort of beginning, intermediate users so didn't know just
how specific we needed to be to ask for help. We will go back into the
msconfig window and recheck anything that was turned off there. The one
thing we didn't do was to go into the registry and edit anything directly
there. We have already lost some image and document folders from the hard
drive, somehow during the fix-up. I don't know how that happened, but they
are no longer available on the hard drive. Unless, by messing with the
administrator, we have just lost them from being available with the present
logon information. I am trying to learn more about the administrative
options that the administrator can do and see if changing things there could
have lost our ability to find the missing folders.
Thanks again. We will check out as much as we can before the dreaded
reinstall of Windows XP. Thanks again.

 

[Malke]

Thanks Malke for your reply. Sorry I couldn't be more explicit about
the problems. We are sort of beginning, intermediate users so didn't
know just how specific we needed to be to ask for help. We will go
back into the msconfig window and recheck anything that was turned off
there. The one thing we didn't do was to go into the registry and edit
anything directly there. We have already lost some image and document
folders from the hard drive, somehow during the fix-up. I don't know
how that happened, but they are no longer available on the hard drive.
Unless, by messing with the administrator, we have just lost them from
being available with the present logon information. I am trying to
learn more about the administrative options that the administrator can
do and see if changing things there could have lost our ability to
find the missing folders. Thanks again. We will check out as much as
we can before the dreaded reinstall of Windows XP. Thanks again.

Since you can get into the system, re-enabling the items you disabled is
a good start. However, you may wish to take the machine to a different
professional computer repair shop (not your local BigStoreUSA) since
you aren't that savvy about the machine and what was done. Your choice,
naturally.

Malke

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi,

Here are some suggestion on dealing with blank windows.
Tips Fixes & FAQs – System Restore opens to a blank window:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/tips.html

Do you see the same results in another account?

And is IE7 installed?

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org