[vinodh]

HI,

I recently bought Lenovo T61 with Windows XP service pack 2. Before telling the problem I wuld like to tell the actions I did on my laptop.

Somehow I could not see the welcome screen may be due to some changes in the User settings. I read the articles and got misguded/misunderstood.

I went to the regedit and changed the Logon Type value from 1 to 0 in the below path

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

From there onwards I could not edit any value in the regedit. I am getting the below message

" Cannot edit LogonType:Error writing the value's new content".

Even I could not change the system date and time, any installation givign an message saying login as Administration or only administration can perform the activity.

I have a back up with the correct settings of regedit, but I could not as I lost the Administration priviliges.

Please let me know if there is nay way to get back the admimnistration privliges

Thanks and Regards,
Vinodh Kumar G

[Advertisements]

Hi vinodh, welcome to G2G.

Boot to Safe Mode by pressing F8 every second or so during the early boot time.
Login as Administrator, no password, just press Enter when asked for it.
Start regedit and change the Logon Type value from 0 back to 1 in the same key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Reboot and all should be well.

[Ztruker]

Hi vinodh, welcome to G2G.

Boot to Safe Mode by pressing F8 every second or so during the early boot time.
Login as Administrator, no password, just press Enter when asked for it.
Start regedit and change the Logon Type value from 0 back to 1 in the same key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Reboot and all should be well.

[vinodh]

Hi Ztruker,

Thanks for responding to the mail.

I did what you have said, but could not login as Administrator.

I booted into safe mode, given username as Administrator and Password blank. Login not successful.

Please suggest what to do?

[Ztruker]

When you tried to login as Administrator, you just pressed the Enter key without entering any data, correct? You DID NOT type blank then press Enter? Did you perhaps give the Administrator account a password? If so you would need to enter that password instead.

Do you have your personal data backed up? If so, the quickest fix is to restore the system to it's new state and start over again. Instructions for doing this should have been included in the documentation that came with the system.

According to the Service and Troubleshooting Guide I found on the Lenovo web site for the T61, you press the blue ThinkVantage key during boot to start the process (see below).

[attachment=19223:T61.gif]

The guide is available here: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/42x3595_a5.pdf

[The Skeptic]

Try to restore the system to a previous date, if possible. Click Start > all programs > accessories > system tools > system restore. Choose a date prior to the registry edit and run Restore.

[Ztruker]

He won't be able to do a restore without Admin privileges.

Anyone know of a way to edit the registry from a bootable CD like UBCD4WIN? Guess I'll have to try it and see.

Edit:: Sure enough, you can edit the registry using regedit from a booted UBCD4WIN (Ultimate Boot CD fro Windows) CD. Just like when booted to XP, you click on Start then Run, type regedit and press Enter or click OK.

The problem is that you probably don't have a XP CD. Any chance you can borrow one from a friend?

These are the basic requirements to create a UBCD4WIN bootable CD:

1. CD Burner and blank CD's
Almost every system out there has a CD Burner now, most new computers have been shipping with DVD Burners for at least the past year.

2. Windows® XP CD, with at least Service Pack 1 (SP2 is highly recommended)
If your CD does not have SP1 or SP2 included on it you can easily "slipstream" a Service Pack using a program called AutoStreamer. Instructions for slipstreaming are on the "slipstreaming" page of this site. Do not use a source that was "modified" by programs that claim to stream hotfixes or drivers into your XP CD. Only use a true XP CD or one that is slipstreamed properly with only an official Service Pack from Microsoft.

TIP- Unsure about what Service Pack your CD has? Look at the root of your XP CD for files ending with a .SP1 or .SP2 extention. Whichever extension you find tells you what Service Pack is installed on your CD.

Edited by Ztruker, 15 March 2008 - 01:34 PM.

[The Skeptic]

Restore is the easiest of all procedures. Very often it fails for various reasons. Since it's so easy to do I always try it. At worst it doesn't work.

[Ztruker]

Agreed, but you need Administrator authority to run restore and that's what he's trying to get back.

[The Skeptic]

Still I would try.

What's this? "Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum". You made me spend some 20 minutes now looking for an explanation. That's the trap that all curious people fall into; you write down an obscure latin sentence and send us rushing to research and discover that it's "garbage in, garbage out". Well done.

[vinodh]

Hi Ztruker/Skeptic,

Firstly Thnaks for the help and response. Yes, I got the Admin priviliges back.

The Administrator has password somehow I could recollect that and did a system state restore and got the priviliges back. Cheers!!!

Now Can you help me in resolving the original problem due to which I have to do all these. That is getting back the welcome screen.

What happened was I tried to remove the password and the settings changed. Now I am getting the ctrl+Alt+del screen which is very frustrating.

I have gone through some blogs and came to know that we need to remove the GinaDll (vrlogon.dll) from the registry.

I can do that now but want to take confirmation from you as I have gone through lot of problems taking decisions on my own.

So please suggest me in getting back the welcome screen back.

Thanks And Regards,
Vinodh Kumar G

[Ztruker]

Sorry for the delay. I ended up having to reinstall XP Pro from scratch on my main computer due to some nagging problems (finally got fed up with them) and now I'm fighting a problem with Volume Shadow Copy which prevents me from getting good, live, system backups.

Anyway, it's easier than that

Select Run from the Start Menu, type control userpasswords2, and click Ok.
Uncheck the Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer option, and click Ok.

Also, when you return from your Screen Saver, it you are prompted for a password there and want to get rid of it:

Click Start, Settings, Control Panel. Double-click Display and choose Screen Saver. Uncheck On resume, password protect.