Thanks for the reply.

I have tried all iterations of safe Mode, but the same Welcome Screen minus User Names and Icons comes up. So, it will not load profiles and I can not get beyond this.

I tried this Boot CD to reset my NT Password and tried to reset my User Passwords. http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

Resetting the NT Password worked OK and I was able to get into the Recovery console without entering a password. However, there were no User Passwords on the system, not even administrator. If they are not present, I can't reset them. The Config file must be corrupted and Users have to be reestablished.

Next step is this procedure with the BartPE Boot disk: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/peboot.htm

I will keep you posted. By the way, this is the first problem I have posted. Have been reading this board for a while. Thanks for all your help.
Regards,
Tony

Quote from Ajfish;
"Basically a rebuild and copying data from the old installation got me back up and running. I will now take a copy of the registry in case this happens again."

As painful as it may be this is the bottomline. Corrupted files, Malware,Bad HDD, etc.We have all been or will get to a point where Windows is is JUST BROKE.

Find and maitain a good Backup procedure!
I know you have heard this before!
Reality can Bite.

Liquidlen,

That is what I wound up doing. Reinstall Win XP and tried to restore my saved files the best I could. I still feel there must be a registry setting to control the Welcome Screen and allow a bypass.

Discovered this web site after I already reinstalled XP. Look at line 45. I wonder if that utility works. Was too late for me to try it.
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Thanks for your help
Tony

A lot of the controls for the Welcome screen are in Contrl Panel>User icon. You will find different options for logging on Classic, Cntrl+Alt+del etc.Different settings gives you different options.There is also the help files to explain the settings.

Hello TechSpotters

I have exactly the same problem as described by the original poster - there are no user icons on my "interactive logon screen" - only the "Turn off Pete's Laptop" button down at the bottom left. The only difference for me is that pressing ctrl-alt-del does not bring up a logon dialogue box - at my logon screen I usually just click on one of my user profiles. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary on my computer before shutting down last night, and I have antivirus / malware software running always and nothing showed up.

Now I can't get into my computer at all, even using different safe modes. I don't fully understand what ajfish or TangoTrolley were saying on how to repair it. I've searched for updated "fixes" but can't find anything that resembles this problem described as it is here. Sorry to be really thick - can someone help please?

My OS is XP SP2; I have 2 user accounts that usually show up - one is "Pete" (my usual one, a limited account) and the other is "System Protection" (admin account that I only use to install programmes and make system changes) - I was using Pete last night. Guest and admin accounts do not usually show up as options to click on - never enabled them. My laptop came with a recovery section loaded onto a hidden (and hopefully protected) partition on the HD - unfortunately I don't know how to access this if I can't get into the comp. When I first loaded Windows I remember being prompted to make a Vaio recovery disk (actually there were 8 and it took a while) - but I'm a bit loath just to reinstall if it's just going to end up with the same problem as folk said it may, although please correct me if I've misinterpreted the above posts.

Thanks in advance for people's input if there is any - if I need to post a new thread please let me know.

Pete