Windows XP hangs just before displaying login screen

Question

I messed up my registry using SubInAcl.

When I tried switching user, Windows froze just before displaying login screen.

Then I rebooted the PC, but Windows froze again just before displaying login screen.

When windows is frozen, if I press alt+tab, I can switch between "Log on to windows" and "Windows logon". Choosing "Log on to windows" does nothing. Choosing "Windows logon" does nothing, except making alt+tab stop working.

Booting into safe mode or last known good configuration still produces the same problem.

Answer 1

I solved it thanks to hek8981's post in Windows hangs just before displaying LOGIN screen, No response to CTRL-ALT-DEL.

These are the steps:

1. Boot into Linux
2. Backup %windir%\system32\config somewhere, just in case.
3. Go to %SystemDrive%\System Volume Information. This is where restore points are stored.
4. Go to the subfolder which was modified last, but before that problem occurred.
5. Go to the RPXXX (XXX are some numbers) subfolder which was modified last, but before that problem occurred.
6. Go to the snapshot subfolder.
7. Copy the following files to somewhere, removing their prefix:
   • _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM -> SAM
   • _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY -> SECURITY
   • _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE -> software
   • _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM -> system
   • _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT -> default
8. Move the copied files to %windir%\system32\config, overwriting the existing ones.
9. Boot into Windows.