Windows XP Login Loop

[PcManiac]

Hey Peeps!
So I recently had a couple customers bring in their systems with a -new-to-me problem.
when booting up, the system seems normal, but when you log in, it will just start a loop of: "loading/saving/loading/saving" your settings...

I looked around online a bit, and it seems to be related to the userinit.exe file.

I am working on making a ultimate boot cd lol, and thought I would bring this up on our forum as well :)

Have any of you run into this issue before?

I am kinda thinking it is virus related, because both computers went down a couple days apart, and in different areas of town.


Thanks for any input!

[NeoGen]

Never seen such behavior but my guess would be the same too, some kind of virus, trojan, or thing like that. Or maybe even a Windows update that didn't go well, as I've seen a few drivers updates from microsoft going bad at times.

If it was an isolated incident, one could say it was a misfortune due to some file corruption, but two with equal symptoms just few days apart means it was no coincidence.

[vaughan]

Not seen this before.

[mitchellds]

Me either, but after running a AV & Malware scan and a disk check/repair from a bootable CD, I'd run a upgrade over the old setup first, before a reinstall.

[Nflight]

Hey Peeps!
So I recently had a couple customers bring in their systems with a -new-to-me problem.
when booting up, the system seems normal, but when you log in, it will just start a loop of: "loading/saving/loading/saving" your settings...

I looked around online a bit, and it seems to be related to the userinit.exe file.

I am kinda thinking it is virus related, because both computers went down a couple days apart, and in different areas of town.

Thanks for any input!

Speak of the devil - I have seen this frustration before! Actually on my own systems, I made some mistakes in my life time and this was one of them. Ahem let me clear my throat I am not perfect.

I was trying to get my system to run faster so I was deleting programs that started on startup by just removing them from the file without removing them from using add/remove windows control panel gizmo. OUCH you get userinit.exe going nuts when you attempt to do this. There are a few programs that have severe reliance on the original Windows NT platform. Without there observation in the start up routine - especially after logon you will see loading/saving/loading/saving flashing before your pretty eyes.

Check with these people who gave you these systems and ask if they were trying to make there systems faster by removing programs from the start up list of programs on there computers. You will find that is the only similarity not a Virus! Unless you want to charge people into misbehaving with there programs irrationally a possibility?

While trapsing through net looking for solutions to this, I found that you can go back via F8 to a time stamp before they made there mistake and remove there frustration quickly efficiently. and this is the link to the Regedit HKEY location - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Userinit=C:\windows\sys tem32\userinit.exe

[Ototero]

I've seen this before on a clients compy, I tried loads of things but eventually did an OS reload.

[PcManiac]

okay, that was dumb!
I typed a nice long reply about how I fixed the problem, and then when I tried to post, it asked me to log in again :( ... I lost it :( *sniff sniff*

so anyway!

the issue is with the userinit.exe file.

in my case, the registry was pointing to the F:\ drive (which doesn't exist!) rather than the c:\ drive.

if any of you run into this issue, I'll be happy to help!

-Kyle