PCTips Box

We have been receiving mails from several readers that they are not able to login to Windows. As soon as they login, the windows show applying your settings, saving your settings and logs off automatically without logging in. This situation is really very troublesome and gets onto the nerves of a person who needs his computer badly for some important work.

The main reasons behind this problem is a corruption in the registry key which holds the value of the files which are executed while login to windows. This registry key can get either replaced with some incorrect value or it might get corrupt due to some virus / trojan activity. Lets see how to fix this issue.

We need to remotely access the infected computer from another computer on same network. Then we need to correct the registry key for userinit under winlogon. (more…)

As it promised, Microsoft Corp. yesterday started sending Windows Vista users an update that identifies illegal copies of the operating system installed with cracks that the company will disable when it distributes Service Pack 1 (SP1) in two weeks. Last Thursday, Microsoft announced the update, which detects two common cracks used to activate pirated copies of Vista, and said it would hit Windows Update (WU) within a week. Users who have left Vista’s recommended WU settings alone will receive the update automatically. Others, said Microsoft, must enable Automatic Update within Vista or manually call up WU from the Start menu.

A document posted to the company’s support site spelled out the details. Among other things, it promised that the 3MB update “does not affect the functionality of your operating system.” (more…)

If you set a computer for automatic logon, anyone who can physically gain access to the computer can also gain access to everything that is on the computer, including any network or networks that the computer is connected to. Additionally, if you turn on automatic logon, the password is stored in the registry in plain text. The specific registry key that stores this value is remotely readable by the Authenticated Users group. Therefore, only use this setting if the computer is physically secured and if you make sure that users who you do not trust cannot remotely see the registry.

You can use Registry Editor to add your log on information. To do this, follow these steps: (more…)