Note: This information requires you to edit your registry settings. Please take caution when doing this. Proceed at your own risk.
I spent the better part of my day fixing my sister’s computer problems. First it was a virus that disguised itself as an anti-virus solution with constant warnings of the laptop being at critical risk. Then, after successfully completing her installation of Norton Antivirus- which always came up at log in to remind her to finish it, but she didn’t- the Internet connection was killed. (Norton did it.) After disabling Norton, the Internet roads were open again.
From there, I was able to download Avira Antivir, PC Tools Spyware Doctor, and Ad-Aware to begin cleaning. Antivir did most of the cleaning, but after restarting the machine as instructed by the anti-virus program, the laptop would not let me log in. I logged in, and it would log me off. I tried again, and got the same result. Repeat a few more times and you get the picture. Microsoft has documented the problem, here.
Using another computer I searched for the problem and the solution was to get a live CD, preferably BartPE. After downloading an image and burning it to a CD, I was able to boot from the CD and go into the registry settings using ‘regedit’. Here are the instructions I used: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/peboot.htm
The link says to only change one key, but check to make sure that these two keys are correct. This will save you time if you have the annoying “Can’t find logon.exe” error message that pops up after you disinfect your computer. Navigate to the following keys and make sure that their values are as indicated below.
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell Value: Explorer.exe
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\UserInit Value: C:\Windows\System32\Userinit.exe
Restart your computer and log in as normal.
While researching this problem, I found a large number of forum threads and posts about it. The best post that contained the problem and solution was here. It provides an additional solution.
After that, I still had some cleaning to do. (First, I uninstalled Norton. I’ve had bad experiences with Norton.) In my experience, one anti-virus program doesn’t always find everything. The second anti-virus program I used was the Spyware Doctor. It was able to pick up some of the overlooked crumbs. To be on the safe side, I’ve installed Ad-Aware and will be running it now. When that’s done, we should be back to normal.
Or for me, on to the next computer-related problem. All of this started when I woke up this morning and was greeted outside my bedroom door with my sister saying, “Can you fix my iPhone? All my contacts are deleted. I tried hooking it up to my computer but my computer doesn’t recognize it…”
It’s never just one problem in the world of IT.