Windows XP (Home) Logon Problem

[Guest]

Hi,

My brother's home P.C. (XP Home) has always been set up to boot into the O.S.
directly. Last night after I shut down the machine, I tried to re-boot back
into the
the machine but was presented with a logon prompt! He has never set up a
password
for his account. I tried entering a "blank" for the password.
The result was a Logon Message which said "The system cannot log you on due
to the following error: The Program issued a command but the command length
is incorrect,"

I then tried booting up into safe mode, logging in as Administrator with
the default "blank" password. The result was the same error message. Note:
no-one
has ever set up the administrator account with a password, so I thought that
this
was worth a try. No Luck!

I'm not sure if this is related but I had recently installed SP2 from a
disk that I ordered from Microsoft. The SP2 install process seemed to
complete O.K. at the
time (~ 1 wk. ago) but last night when I went to the Microsoft Windows
Update site
and scanned for the latest updates, W.U. reported that the machine needed
the 4
critical/security up dates released 12/14/04, and that the machine needed
SP2 as
well! I went ahead and downloaded/installed the 4 critical updates. I noted
the
unusual sizes of the updates as 0 kb. ( Yes all 4 were listed as 0 kb ). I
shutdown the
machine, re-booted and encountered the Logon problem.

I'm stuck, and I feel real bad for my brother, I tried to help him out by
installing SP2
and the updates and I've locked him out instead.

I searched this forum and found someone else with a similar problem but
there were
no solutions offered.

I created a system restore point after doing some major house cleaning last
week.
If I can boot from a floppy or CD with NTDOS, How do I run a system restore
or change the passwords from a CLI ( w.o. admin priv's )?

Please Help, It's Greatly Appreciated,
Thanks, Frank

 

[Kelly]

http://groups-beta.google.com/group...nd+but+the+command+length+&qt_s=Search+Groups

--
All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com

 

[inajeep]

Pointing back to the forum to search on the problem when there isn't a
solution is not in itself a solution. But thanks for the effort.

I too have the same issue on two home machines. I have two others that
are laptops that don't have any logon issues.

 

[dogthinker]

As far as I can tell it is one of these, probably 885835:
KB885836, KB886185, KB873339, KB885835.

In terms of recovering your computer:

The passwords themselves haven't changed - you can still get into the
recovery console fine.

**Last Known Good** -> Try this! It works with some computers. This is
sometimes only good for 1 startup though, so make sure you get it right
first time once you are in. Probably system restore is the best bet,
alternatively you could try manually uninstalling kb885835.
Manual system restore -> has no effect -> so this is not a registry
problem.
Repair -> works in some cases, but not all (Do this by booting from XP
CD and choosing to install, then choosing to repair)
New folder install / Parallel install -> works.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the help,

I've been searching the forums and found others
with the same problem. KB885835 is suspect.

As far as recovering the system: I've rebooted more than
once so Last Known Good won't work for me. I can't logon
so how do I run system restore.? The icing on the cake is:
I don't have the Windows XP Home disk. It's my brother's
Compaq machine and they didn't supply the disk when he
bought it at Bestbuy.

Thanks, Frank

 

[Guest]

I've had exactly this problem too - it's definately KB885835 that is to
blame. I logged in on "last known good profile" and it was uninstalled, so
trying to persuade microsoft to stop automatically downloading it to me now!

 

[Guest]

I'm having the same problem with this update in XP Pro. First time, I
installed them, I rebooted and when entering the password, I got "Incorrect
Parameters" and after trying everything I could, I reinstalled the OS.
Second time, same thing. Third time, I installed the updates one at a time
and rebooted after each and found that 885835 was the culprit. I reformatted
(for the third time) and created a password recovery disk for the
administrator account and a user account and I activated the guest account .
Installed the update, rebooted, locked out and the recovery disks wouldn't
help. So, I'm without the update at the moment hoping someone can figure it
out. My question now is if any of the other updates are causing the same
problem. Has anyone having this problem tried the others?

Thanks,
Craig McVeay

 

[Kelly]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=885835&btnG=Google+Search

--
Happy New Year,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com