autoruns mistake

[Larry]

I made the mistake of trying microsoft autoruns utility this morning, withnot
so good results. Thinking (This is the problem (THINKING) that i knew what
was going on I unchecked a bunch of stuff. Now I can't get to the system
restore to undo the mess I made.
I'm running XP Pro SP3. I trun on the pc and it askes for a logon and
password, never done that before. I put in my username which is already
listed no password and click ok. It boots to the desktop, but before it can
load any icons it shuts down and again askes for my logon. I can do this till
doomesday comes.
Here is my question, How can I get past this logon issue and set my pc back
to an earleir time. Thanks of any help Larry

 

[John John (MVP)]

It sounds like you disabled the Userinit entry at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

You need to access the registry and restore this value. Is your machine
a standalone or is it part of a network?

John

 

[John John (MVP)]

Did you try booting to the Last Known Good Configuration? Tap the F8
key just before Windows starts to boot to get to the boot options.

John

 

[Malke]

I made the mistake of trying microsoft autoruns utility this morning,
withnot so good results. Thinking (This is the problem (THINKING) that i
knew what was going on I unchecked a bunch of stuff. Now I can't get to
the system restore to undo the mess I made.
I'm running XP Pro SP3. I trun on the pc and it askes for a logon and
password, never done that before. I put in my username which is already
listed no password and click ok. It boots to the desktop, but before it
can load any icons it shuts down and again askes for my logon. I can do
this till doomesday comes.
Here is my question, How can I get past this logon issue and set my pc
back
to an earleir time. Thanks of any help Larry

Some things to try:

1. Try Last Known Good Configuration. Repeatedly tap F8 as the computer is
starting to get to that menu. Use your arrow key to select LKGC.

2. See if you can get into the built-in Administrator account. In the logon
box, enter Administrator and whatever password you originally assigned. If
you didn't assign a password, then leave it blank. If you can, run System
Restore.

3. If neither of those things works, try enabling some of the services you
disabled from the Recovery Console. Boot the computer with your XP install
disk and choose "R" to start the Recovery Console.

Using the Recovery Console - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654/

The Recovery Console will want the password for the built-in Administrator
account.

4. Or you could try a Repair Install.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
How-To

In any case, if you have important data on the drive that you haven't backed
up, I'd pull the drive and either put it in an external USB enclosure or
slave it in a working machine and retrieve the data first.

Malke

 

[Larry]

Hey John Yes my system is a stand alone desktop and yes I tried different
boots safemood, safemode with command prompt boot ot last known good
settings. If I had a boot disk maybe?????? I don't know a whole lot about
computers, enough to make messes. I tried to boot from xp setup disk as well
something about recover consoul. Don't know anything about dos commands. Any
how

 

[Larry]

Thanks for getting back with me. I have tried to boot to last known good
config. would'nt do anything for me. I have not tried the admin account I'll
try that next. I also tried the recovery consoul but don't know anything
about dos commands

 

[John John (MVP)]

http://forums.techarena.in/windows-xp-support/997822.htm


RESOLUTION
===========

<snip>

That solution deals with the wsaupdater.exe problem, it is very unlikely
that the OP is dealing with wsaupdater.exe and the solution offered will
not likely to fix anything.

John

 

[Larry]

Hi again well the administrator account would'nt work either Next tip

 

[John John (MVP)]

I don't think that you will be able to fix this from the Recovery
Console, you cannot edit the registry by way of the Recovery Console.
If you feel confident enough to mount the drive in another Windows XP
computer or in a USB enclosure then you can access the damaged registry
and try to fix things. If you cannot mount the disk in another XP
machine or USB enclosure then this will be a very difficult problem to
solve, you will need to use a special boot disk with an onboard registry
editor, building such a boot disk is not a trivial matter, it takes
several hours and it takes advanced computer skills.

Does your hard drive have more than one partition? Installing a second
"parallel" copy of Windows on the second partition is another method
that can be used to access the damaged registry on the broken
installation. Otherwise you can try a Repair Install, but that will
require that you "slipstream" SP3 to your Windows CD.

Fixing the damaged registry is not too hard to do, the hard part is
finding a way to access the registry. Tell us which methods are
available to you and we will see what we can suggest.

John

 

[Larry]

Thats good because i did not understand anything he said or typed. This is
way over my head. I tried the administrator account but that does the same
thing starts to the desktop then shutsdown, then startes again (if I click
ok) and shuts down. I don't understand how you can edit a registry entry,
if you can't even get to a command prompt Larry

 

[Larry]

My HD has just one partition. and I don't understand what you mean by saying
what methods i have available to me. And I sure don't know what a
slipstream is. Maybe I will just bring it to the shop and let them have at

 

[John John (MVP)]

The other method would be to put the disk in another Windows XP machine
or in a USB enclosure and use Regedit and the Load Hive feature to
change the Winlogon Userinit value. If you have a knowledgeable friend
or other to help you they could put your hard disk in their XP machine
and use the method shown here: http://www.rwin.ch/xp-live/regedit.htm
to access the registry.

The value to check is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Value Name: Userinit
Value Type: REG_SZ
Value data: C:\WINNT\system32\userinit.exe,

Note the required comma at the end.

If you bring the pc to a repair shop print these instructions and ask
them if they can check it for you, they should be able to do this quite
easily.

John

 

[Alan]

Hi John,

If someone is at SP3, is it a requirement to slipstream SP3 to a Windows
Installation CD -- let's say SP2 -- before doing a repair install?

If one does a repair install with a Windows SP2 installation CD, won't the
OS revert back to SP2?

Alan

 

[Larry]

Hey Clark Thanks for your responce, but i think this problem is way over my
head. To be honest what you said in your post has my mind in a fog bank. I'm
in the process of doing a repair install, I don't know how much data i will
lose but maybe it will be ok. Any other simpler fixes are allways welcome.
Agani Thanks Larry

 

[Daave]

I don't understand how you can edit a registry entry,
if you can't even get to a command prompt

Although this takes some legwork, the instructions are straightforward
enough.

"How To Edit Windows Registry Key Values without Booting in Windows":
http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives...gistry-key-values-without-booting-in-windows/

"How to Build the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows®":
http://www.ubcd4win.com/howto.htm

Having one of these resuce disks is *very* helpful. But you might prefer
just to pay an experienced tech to fix this problem. If so, stay away
from the big chain stores.

 

[John John (MVP)]

I'm not 100% sure on that, I think that you might be right.

John

 

[George]

It will not let you do anything unless the CD matches what is on the system
now. So if you have SP3 then you need to slipstream to that to use the
repair install. Otherwise it will ask you to install the proper CD.

 

[Alan]

Hi George,

The reason I asked John John for clarification about his slipstreaming
statement is because I DID do an XP repair install -- to get my Help and
Support working again -- using my XP Home SP2 CD onto my SP3-updated system
a couple of weeks ago.

The repair install proceeded without any problems, and after it finished my
system had reverted back to SP2.

I then re-installed SP3.

Alan

 

[Larry]

Hey John I just finished up doing a repair install. what a hassel when you
don't know what you are doing. I think everything is back to where it should
be.
Took me 6 1/2 hours today to locate all my device drivers to reinstall
them. I guess that's all I lost in the repair, anyway I guess all is well
again, and thanks for your help Larry (Now know well enough to keep hand off
what you don't know)

 

[Larry]

Thanks Alan Last night I done a repair install with my original xp install
disk I discovered I lost most of my device drivers. and yes we went back to
sp2. Needless to say I spent about 6 1/2 hours today reinstalling everything.
Maybe I learned to keep hands off things that work OK. Thanks again for your
responce Larry