Member Avatar for Epidural needle

Epidural needle here for the first time!
Bamboozled by an hp compaq with winxp that boots up fine until the logon screen. Attempt to login thru any user starts, reachs a blank background and then the logout process starts with "saving your settings" finally returning to the login page. Safemode start does the same irrespective of account chosen.
Advise me urgently.
kindly pardon me if this issue has been succinctly addressed by the community. Just point me in the right direction, if so!
Thanks

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by jbisono

Dani AI

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This looks like the classic XP “logon → blank desktop → Saving your settings → logging off” loop. Because it happens in Safe Mode too, the problem is much more likely a Winlogon/Userinit registry issue or a missing/corrupt userinit.exe (often caused by malware) than a normal desktop startup item. Try Last Known Good (press F8 at boot) or a System Restore point first; both can undo a recent registry change. See Microsoft’s guidance on the symptom and the two Winlogon values to check. (Microsoft: Windows logs on and logs off immediately)

If that doesn’t work, don’t jump straight to a full reinstall. Use a secondary PC + network (Remote Registry) or boot a rescue/PE disk (BartPE/Hiren/UBCD/WinRE) to edit the offline registry hive at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Ensure Shell points to explorer.exe and Userinit points to your system userinit.exe (typical value: C:\Windows\System32\userinit.exe — many guides show a trailing comma). If userinit.exe is missing, you can restore it from the XP CD’s i386 folder (or copy it to the name the registry expects). Example Recovery Console-style commands (adjust drive letters as needed):

cd \windows\system32
copy userinit.exe wsaupdater.exe
-- or --
expand D:\i386\userinit.ex_ C:\Windows\System32\userinit.exe
exit

Guides that walk through loading the offline hive and fixing Userinit are useful when you can’t log in. (How to edit the registry offline) (community examples and recovery tips)

Tie-ins with earlier replies: ’s System Restore idea is a good quick try; ’s XP CD approach is viable when file recovery or a remote-registry edit isn’t possible; ’s PE-boot suggestion is along the same line (bootable environment + regedit). After you regain access, run full offline/multiple AV scans (rescue media), run SFC/chkdsk, and consider a repair install or fresh install only if the system remains compromised.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for FlamingClaw

is the system restore helps?

Member Avatar for Xlphos

Have you got the xp cd? I suggest repairing it using the XP cd.

Have you tried using the alternative login, I think if you quickly press CTRL+ALT+DEL twice before logging in you may login using the alernative.

Member Avatar for jbisono

Could be a lot of reasons but, ones i had that problem with mine computer and i fixed it with this tool , hope that help you

Regards.

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