30. March 2011
I migrated this blog post to SuperUser.com, yay! :-)
I was attempting to repair the welcome screen on Windows XP for a client yesterday.
Here's a list of the repair steps I attempted:
- Toggled Welcome Screen / Fast User Switching
- Checked control userpasswords2
- Ran System File Checker: sfc /scannow
- Checked Fast User Switching Compatibility service (services.msc)
- Checked Terminal Services service
- Checked Event Viewer (Winlogon) for issues
- Verified no GinaDLL entry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
- Verified HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\LogonType was set to 1
- Verified HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon\AllowMultipleTSSessions was set to 1
- Imported the Restore Fast User Switching registry file from kellys-korner-xp.com (includes AllowMultipleTSSessions)
- Checked HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system possibly overriding the above
- Ran XP_FixLogon.exe from dougknox.com to verify the default standard Gina was in use
- Getting desperate: double checked stats of gina files: dir *gina* /p/s/a (even after SFC verified them)
- Getting desperate: used NirSoft's RegScanner to search for strings containing gina in the registry looking for something suspicious
and finally
Daniel Milner (Milner Solutions), you are my hero. I don't know what black magic your tool performs that SFC and registry tweaks couldn't compete with, but I'm deeply intrigued, and grateful.