Windows Update / Logon Issue

[Lee]

I have a strange problem that I have been trying to fix on
a friend's laptop running XP Home. He keeps his computer
updated, using Windows Update whenever prompted. The last
time he ran Windows Update, the computer prompted him to
reboot, and he did so. After rebooting, the logon screen
appeared like normal, and he proceeded to logon to his
account using his blank password. (He is the only one who
uses his computer; his account is an Administrator one)
Windows seemed to log on, but after a few seconds a window
appeared. It said "The legal policy of this system does
not permit you to logon interactively." Clicking OK
returned him to the logon screen. Keep in mind that he is
a novice computer user and has never used Legal Policies
or strange interactive logons. After doing some research,
I found this article
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;318026&Product=winxp
This doesn't seem to be a solution, as it deals with
Windows installations, not basic updates. I gave it a
shot, browsing through log files, to no avail.

This does not seem to be a password problem, but since
logging in is impossible, how can we go about changing
settings to fix it?

Sorry about the long post, but I wanted to make sure to
include everything pertinent. Any help would be
appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Faisal]

Hi,

Log on in safe mode , choose adminstraor account and see
if you get this message. IN Windows XP HE , under normal
mode Administrator account doesnt show up.

Please provide me the exact error message word by word.

Regards,
Faisal

 

[Lee]

In safe mode, the administrator account does show up, but
when trying to log on with a blank password (which should
work) or any other password, the same error appears: "The
legal policy of this system does not permit you to logon
interactively." Any password typed in on any account
results in this error appearing and windows returning to
the logon screen after clicking OK.

Lee