Windows restarts immediately after login

[Guest]

User has an HP notebook running Win XP Pro SP2. He admits to making some
changes in MSCONFIG. Now system boots/restarts to login screen, accepts the
user / password and continues. You can hear the chimes as desktop should be
loading then after a few seconds you hear the shutdown chimes, says he sees
the system is shutting down message and restarts to the login screen again.
There are no error messages. We tried his user account which is a computer
admin account, and tried the administrator account. He gets same results
when trying to use either Safe mode or normal. We tried Last Known Good
Config with no luck. Is there someway to use a system restore point without
getting logged in? Is there someway to bypass all startup config settings?
Thanks for any ideas.

 

[Guest]

It sounds like a Windows Activation Thing, have you activated your copy of
windows yet?

 

[Guest]

Windows and all software has been activated and registered. The system is
around a year old. No problems until now. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

kbgrunt,

try connecting to the registry from another computer on the same network, if
this is successful goto

HKLM\software\microsoft\windows nt\currentversion\WinLogin"

if there is a key named "OldUserinit", delete the "Userinit" key and rename
the "OldUserinit" key to "Userinit"

The "Userinit" key should now say "C:\%sysdir%\system32\userinit.exe"

if you cannot connect remotely, try using your windows xp cd and activating
the recovery console to repair your registry.