Welcome screen semi-freeze

Windows XP >> Welcome screen semi-freeze I'm running XP Professional. I've got an admin account set up with a
password, and several user accounts with no password. Beginning a week ago
or so, I started having trouble at the Welcome Screen (The one with the icon
for each account.) It would semi-freeze, so that clicking on the icon for
the any user account or clicking on the "Shut down" button would do nothing.
If I click on the Admin icon, it displays the thing to enter the Admin
password. When I enter the password it logs me on as Admin. If I then
immediately log off (doing nothing else), then the other icons work perfectly.

System info: 2 GB RAM, (originally) 320 GB Maxtor hard drive. 142 GB of
free space. Windows XP Professional SP2. It is almost fully patched, except
for Genuine Advantage Notification Tool and IE 7 (but I almost never us IE,
instead I use Firefox), and a few .NET and DRM things. I'm super faithful
about updating my antivirus stuff. I'm behind a firewall that blocks all
incoming connections.

A couple of months ago my hard drive started making an occasional clanking
sound. I called the company I got the computer from (Cyberpower), and the
shipped me a replacement hard drive. Alas, it was not an exact replacement:
300 GB instead of 320. But I found a utility on the Maxtor web site that let
me copy the old disk to the new disk. That worked flawlessly. Then I
installed the new disk as the live hard drive. There were only 2 complaints:
(1) Photoshop asked to be reactivated, and that was just one click. (2) The
next time I ran Windows Update, it said I had to update the updater, and that
installed Genuine Advantage (not the notification component, which is
separate). Genuine Advantage had been installed long ago. But my guess is
that the Maxtor tool copied at the file system level and Genuine Advantage, I
think, works like a root kit and thus is invisible to the file system, so it
didn't get copied.

Any ideas?

Windows XP263

Windows XP >> Welcome screen semi-freeze "EnglishCountryDancer" wrote
> I'm running XP Professional. I've got an admin account set up with a
> password, and several user accounts with no password. Beginning a week
> ago
> or so, I started having trouble at the Welcome Screen (The one with the
> icon
> for each account.) It would semi-freeze, so that clicking on the icon for
> the any user account or clicking on the "Shut down" button would do
> nothing.
> If I click on the Admin icon, it displays the thing to enter the Admin
> password. When I enter the password it logs me on as Admin. If I then
> immediately log off (doing nothing else), then the other icons work
> perfectly.
>
> System info: 2 GB RAM, (originally) 320 GB Maxtor hard drive. 142 GB of
> free space. Windows XP Professional SP2. It is almost fully patched,
> except
> for Genuine Advantage Notification Tool and IE 7 (but I almost never us
> IE,
> instead I use Firefox), and a few .NET and DRM things. I'm super
> faithful
> about updating my antivirus stuff. I'm behind a firewall that blocks all
> incoming connections.
>
> A couple of months ago my hard drive started making an occasional clanking
> sound. I called the company I got the computer from (Cyberpower), and the
> shipped me a replacement hard drive. Alas, it was not an exact
> replacement:
> 300 GB instead of 320. But I found a utility on the Maxtor web site that
> let
> me copy the old disk to the new disk. That worked flawlessly. Then I
> installed the new disk as the live hard drive. There were only 2
> complaints:
> (1) Photoshop asked to be reactivated, and that was just one click. (2)
> The
> next time I ran Windows Update, it said I had to update the updater, and
> that
> installed Genuine Advantage (not the notification component, which is
> separate). Genuine Advantage had been installed long ago. But my guess
> is
> that the Maxtor tool copied at the file system level and Genuine
> Advantage, I
> think, works like a root kit and thus is invisible to the file system, so
> it
> didn't get copied.
>
> Any ideas?

Genuine Advantage get's updated by MS periodically, so that's probably why
it prompted to install. I doubt it had anything to do with changing the hard
drive.

Since it's a recent change have you tried a system restore to a point when
things worked? Have you tried putting passwords on the other accounts to
see if that makes a difference?

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

Windows XP >> Welcome screen semi-freeze

"Rock" wrote:

> "EnglishCountryDancer" wrote
> > I'm running XP Professional. I've got an admin account set up with a
> > password, and several user accounts with no password. Beginning a week
> > ago
> > or so, I started having trouble at the Welcome Screen (The one with the
> > icon
> > for each account.) It would semi-freeze, so that clicking on the icon for
> > the any user account or clicking on the "Shut down" button would do
> > nothing.
> > If I click on the Admin icon, it displays the thing to enter the Admin
> > password. When I enter the password it logs me on as Admin. If I then
> > immediately log off (doing nothing else), then the other icons work
> > perfectly.
> >
> > System info: 2 GB RAM, (originally) 320 GB Maxtor hard drive. 142 GB of
> > free space. Windows XP Professional SP2. It is almost fully patched,
> > except
> > for Genuine Advantage Notification Tool and IE 7 (but I almost never us
> > IE,
> > instead I use Firefox), and a few .NET and DRM things. I'm super
> > faithful
> > about updating my antivirus stuff. I'm behind a firewall that blocks all
> > incoming connections.
> >
> > A couple of months ago my hard drive started making an occasional clanking
> > sound. I called the company I got the computer from (Cyberpower), and the
> > shipped me a replacement hard drive. Alas, it was not an exact
> > replacement:
> > 300 GB instead of 320. But I found a utility on the Maxtor web site that
> > let
> > me copy the old disk to the new disk. That worked flawlessly. Then I
> > installed the new disk as the live hard drive. There were only 2
> > complaints:
> > (1) Photoshop asked to be reactivated, and that was just one click. (2)
> > The
> > next time I ran Windows Update, it said I had to update the updater, and
> > that
> > installed Genuine Advantage (not the notification component, which is
> > separate). Genuine Advantage had been installed long ago. But my guess
> > is
> > that the Maxtor tool copied at the file system level and Genuine
> > Advantage, I
> > think, works like a root kit and thus is invisible to the file system, so
> > it
> > didn't get copied.
> >
> > Any ideas?
>
>
> Genuine Advantage get's updated by MS periodically, so that's probably why
> it prompted to install. I doubt it had anything to do with changing the hard
> drive.
>
> Since it's a recent change have you tried a system restore to a point when
> things worked? Have you tried putting passwords on the other accounts to
> see if that makes a difference?
>
> --
> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
>
>

Thank you for your reply.
I forgot to mention that the problem is only intermittant.

I'll try putting passwords on the other accounts and see if it makes any
difference. But since it's intermittant, it will be a few days before I know.