Windows login hangs

[Oliver]

Following boot-up, when I try to login, the i-bar in user-
name stops blinking, the mousepointer won't move, in short
the system hangs. Has anyone encountered this before? All
I can think of is to reinstall W2k, but is there a less
involved solution? Only change in last few weeks was my
daughter downloaded animated mouse pointers from the web.
The problem only occurred a couple of weeks after she
started using them though.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Following boot-up, when I try to login, the i-bar in user-
name stops blinking, the mousepointer won't move, in short
the system hangs. Has anyone encountered this before? All
I can think of is to reinstall W2k, but is there a less
involved solution? Only change in last few weeks was my
daughter downloaded animated mouse pointers from the web.
The problem only occurred a couple of weeks after she
started using them though.

Did you try Safe Mode? (Press F8 during the early boot phase.)

 

[Oliver]

Hi Pegasus
Yes, tried safe mode and it's ok, but what can I do there
to sort it out?
o

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

You can now run msconfig.exe (http://www.svrops.com/svrops/dwnldoth.htm)
and use it to disable all non-essential startup tasks until you
isolate the culprit.

In general you should treat stuff that's available freely on
the Internet like the proverbial sandwich lying in the gutter.
Would you eat it just because it looks tasty? Yet you (or
your daughter) download stuff written by a complete
stranger who might be incompetent at best and malocious
at worst.