Looking for a creative way to break an XP install

[agent154]

Let me explain the topic :)

I'm in an A+ class in college, and as a lab assignment, we were tasked with breaking a computer and getting another team to try and fix it. The only requirement, however, is that it cannot be so bad that the only way to fix it would be to reinstall windows alltogether. Also, it has to be a software-based problem, not hardware.

I've thought about destroying the MBR, but I don't know how to go about actually doing that, and I don't want to do that now anyhow because the team that was going to work on my PC now knows what I *was*going to do, so I need a new idea. Also, that team decided they wanted to delete the NTLDR, so I don't want to get them to fix their own problem. Anything else?

[DenisOxon]

Hi,

You could install some faulty hardware, even a keyboard or mouse would be enoough to stop it booting.

Good luck

Denis

Let me explain the topic :)

I'm in an A+ class in college, and as a lab assignment, we were tasked with breaking a computer and getting another team to try and fix it. The only requirement, however, is that it cannot be so bad that the only way to fix it would be to reinstall windows alltogether. Also, it has to be a software-based problem, not hardware.

I've thought about destroying the MBR, but I don't know how to go about actually doing that, and I don't want to do that now anyhow because the team that was going to work on my PC now knows what I *was*going to do, so I need a new idea. Also, that team decided they wanted to delete the NTLDR, so I don't want to get them to fix their own problem. Anything else?

[lonelyday91]

i admit i am a newbie, but i doesn't hurt to try rite?
i tried to change the theme by changing shell32.dll and after restart, i cannot enter windows...i had to reinstall my windows....
so,
delete shell32.dll at WINDOWS/system32

[agent154]

but that's the problem, I can't have a situation where reinstalling windows is the only solution... Thanks for the idea though.

[agent154]

I wonder - if I delete winlogon.exe, or change the registry reference to it, can that be fixed without formatting? I had a problem like that years ago on a friend's PC after cleaning out malware, but I didn't know how to fix it so I formatted.

[lonelyday91]

I can't have a situation where reinstalling windows is the only solution

now i get it...

[gerbil]

Um... in the currentcontrolset, session manager, KnownDLLs subkey, change the DLLDirectory value to %systemroot%
Or go to this key, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options.
Under it add a new key, explorer.exe, and in that create a new string with name Debugger, value C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
Then add another new key, regedit.exe with string name Debugger, value C:\WINDOWS\system32\explorer.exe

[gerbil]

Oops, that last value should read C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe
Yeah....