XP Hanging on "Windows XP is starting up"

[CaptainOrgasmo]

I've searched everywhere and this problem seems to be pretty common; however, some of the symptoms on my machine are somewhat different and I couldn't find a good fix.

The machine has been running fine for the last two months or so until yesterday. My brother was on it (weird how problems happen when other people use your computer huh?) and it hard froze in the middle of playing some online poker.

Anyways, here is what I tried w/ no success:

1) Booted into safe mode and disabled all non MS startup processes
2) System restore (used several different checkpoints)
3) 'Last known good configuration' on the startup options

It was hanging on the 'Windows is starting up' until I disabled all the non MS processes. Now it lets me click one of the user accounts and never does anything. It doesn't hang since I can still move the mouse, but it just sits there and never loads windows.

Thanks in advance! I'm getting too old for this stuff. 🙁

 

[RebateMonger]

If the problem wasn't caused by malware, you may be able to fix it by doing an XP Repair Install. MS and other sites have details on how to perform this.

 

[cocoy]

Please try it as follows:

1. Start -> Run : type "Regedit".

2. Locate the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

3. Create DefaultUserName by:

1. In Registry Editor, click Edit, click New, and then click String Value.
2. Type DefaultUserName as the value name, and then press ENTER.
3. Double-click the newly created key, and then type "Administrator" in the Value Data box.

4. Double-click the AutoAdminLogon entry, type 1 in the Value Data box, and then click OK.

5. Exit Registry Editor.

6. Restart your computer.

 

[CaptainOrgasmo]

Thanks guys it looks like it was either malware or some kind of driver problem w/ AVG.

Event viewer was showing problems loading 'avgxxx' during startup so I uninstalled AVG and ran Spybot S&D and everything's working for the moment.