Computer Issues

Argh, computer issues have struck my relatively new computer. Something or someone has caused my machine to not allow us to log into Windows anymore. Basically, we have one account on the machine and just have it auto login to Windows without displaying the welcome screen and having to click on the single account.

Sometime over the last couple weeks, since the last reboot, something caused that to change. My initial thoughts would have been a virus, but there have been many virus/malware/trojan scans during that time that found nothing, but it’s not perfect World. The Windows welcome screen now comes up and when you click on our account (which should not be coming up anyways), nothing happens. Switching to the classic login screen is not better as its waiting for a password. The same issue applies to the Administrator account, which like our account, has a blank password.

I have tried using several password modification programs and worked with the a couple of the companies on the issue. I have been able to actually change the password of both accounts in the SAM file, but the login still doesn’t work. Thus, we have all come to pretty much the same conclusion: Something has corrupted some system files that is preventing login. I cannot tell if it was a virus, another program mistake (a webserver was recently installed) or just some random failure. At this point, it really doesn’t matter.

About the only solution left for me, is to completely reinstall Windows XP. This will also require a reinstall of all my applications. Hopefully, data loss will be at a minimum. I do have backups of all important information. This will not be a fun process and is not how I like to spend my time on the computer.

More as the repair/recovery attempts proceed…