trouble at welcome screen

[Guest]

Last night I shutdown my computer as usual. No problems. Today when I turned
on my laptop and try to log in to a regular user account, I get "Logging Off"
right away and it goes back to the welcome screen. When I try to log in as
the user defined as administrator, I enter my password and then the screen
goes black and stays black. When I close and then reopen the laptop, the
welcome screen says I am logged on. As soon as I re-enter my password, the
screen goes black again. What is happening here? I can't get to the desktop.
Thanks.

 

[Andy [Ex-MSFT]]

Last night I shutdown my computer as usual. No problems. Today when I
turned
on my laptop and try to log in to a regular user account, I get "Logging
Off"
right away and it goes back to the welcome screen. When I try to log in as
the user defined as administrator, I enter my password and then the screen
goes black and stays black. When I close and then reopen the laptop, the
welcome screen says I am logged on. As soon as I re-enter my password, the
screen goes black again. What is happening here? I can't get to the
desktop.

When you close your laptop are you physically closing the lid instead of
pressing power until your laptop shuts down?

Try a full restart, sounds like your system isn't sleeping correctly.

Click Start button then the > arrow next to the power button and choose
restart.

Doesn't fix the problem, what model/brand notebook do you have?

 

[Guest]

I chose Shutdown from the menu and then closed the lid when it was done. I
have restarted several times, including in safe mode and in "reboot from last
successful config". I have no start button to press to follow your advice. do
you mean the power button? when I do that, the login screen comes back as my
user is "locked". when i hit switch user it says i am logged on. i am new to
vista so its hard for me to debug this...

last night i downloaded and unzipped (but didn't run) a bunch of stuff. how
can i know if i've got a virus or clobbered something important?

I have an Alienware m9700 running vista ultimate.

thanks for your time.

 

[Peter Foldes]

Does it work correctly in Safe mode ??

 

[Guest]

No, I tried restarting in safe mode and the "last successful configuration"
mode. No effect. I can't get to my desktop. I just ran the Vista repair CD
and it found no problems since I am booting successfully. I just can't login.
It either says "Welcome" and then "Logging off", or it goes to a black screen
depending on who i am trying to login.

I have no idea how to proceed......