interactive log-on denied

[Bern Oulli]

My son (in Australia) had a problem with his computer, which turned out to be the graphics card as it happens. However, before appreciating this he had seen fit to do "Repair Installation" - O.S is Windows XP Pro. Now, having solved the graphics card problem, he is unable to log on, getting the error message "The local policy of this machine does not permit you to log on interactively."
He gets the same error when trying under Administrator account, and the other two user accounts on the machine. Also same results in Safe Mode.
I've googled the error and it seems to relate to Windows 2003, not XP. None of the work-arounds seem applicable - logging on from a remote machine for instance, or restting log-on rights as administrator as he cannot log on at all.
Has anyone any ideas short of a complete re-install of Win XP?

[happy hippy]

This may help

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-1035_11-5313668.html

If that does not work then a format and full relaod may be the best bet.

Good Luck!

[Saab Dastard]

There is a small possibility that doing an installation and choosing the "Repair Current Installation" may work.

Note that this is NOT the same as booting from installation CD and choosing the Repair option - boot from CD, choose Install THEN choose Repair Existing.

See here. (http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm)

He can also do an installation alongside the existing (assuming there is sufficient space) to avoid overwriting data - do this to recover data that has not been backed up, back up the data to CD or another PC or disk, then do a format and clean install.

SD

[Saab Dastard]

For the more confident, there are things that can be done with the recovery console (command line), assuming that it is accessible and "administrator" still has access to the local disk.

Namely - renaming the C: \Windows\system32\config\security file to (say) security.old and copying in the security file from C: \windows\repair.

Similarly for the SAM file - this is where the user passwords are stored - it's not this that has been corrupted, though.

SD

[Bern Oulli]

Thanks chaps for these offerings. I will let you know what happens. I think my phone bill this month is going up!