How do you logon to other user accounts in Safe Mode?.

Draeger

Draeger

Draeger

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Got a Packard Bell desktop sat here that is quite literally riddled with Trojans and malware. I have logged on via the Admin account and cleaned it using Vundofix, Combofix, Super Antispyware and Malwarebytes. The registry needed lots of adjustments too having had the Control Panel and Task Manager disabled by the nasties. Currently trying to work out why Explorer.exe doesn't load on startup and requires activating manually via Task Manager.

Anyway, logged onto one of the other user accounts on the PC ( there are four in total ) and it has been locked down tightly too, no explorer.exe and Task Manager has been disabled so I can't even start it manually.

Out of the 4 user accounts on the system, when you boot to Safe Mode only the Administrator and the first of the listed user accounts appears at the logon screen. I can't see where the other 3 accounts are, how do you log onto those from Safe Mode?.

Thanks.
 
Why do you need to access them in Safe Mode? Any changes you need to make to registry can be done from the Admin account.
 
Brian Stuart said:
Sounds to me as though it would benefit from a complete clean reinstall if you are still having problems.
Click to expand...

It may well come to that yet!!!. :D

SiriusB said:
Why do you need to access them in Safe Mode? Any changes you need to make to registry can be done from the Admin account.
Click to expand...

So let me get this right - Any changes made to the Windows Registry via the Admin account affects all other user accounts?. Reason I'm asking is that the first ( non-admin ) account that I have made a fair bit of headway in cleaning out, initially did not allow me to bring up the Control Panel etc. I eventually got into the Registry by using a vb script which re-enabled regedit and changed the DWORD value under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
Explorer in both the USER and SYSTEM settings. But having done that under the Admin account it doesn't seem to have had a knock on effect through the other accounts, they are still not allowing the Task manager, Control Panel, Right click on My computer and Properties etc to run?.

Also, I thought it would be prudent to run Super Antispyware and Malware Bytes in Safe Mode under each of the user accounts to perform a thorough clean or am I just making extra work for myself there?. :confused:
 
[FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]Assuming this is XP:[/FONT]


 [FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]Editing the Registry for "other" Users[/FONT]
 [FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]From an account with Administrator level access[/FONT]
 [FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]1) Click Start, Run and enter REGEDIT
2) In Regedit, highlight the HKEY_USERS key and go to File, Load Hive.
3) Use the File Open dialog to go to the Documents and Settings\<username> folder, where <username> is the account you wish to modify.
4) Highlight the NTUSER.DAT file in this folder (usually a hidden file) and select Open.
5) You'll be prompted to enter a "Key name". You can use whatever you wish, but I use the User's logon name.
6) You can now expand the Hive you just loaded and make any needed changes.
7) When finished, highlight this Hive again and go to File, Unload Hive.[/FONT]
 [FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]NOTE: You MUST unload the Hive prior to logging on to the users account. Otherwise XP may have trouble loading the user's profile.

As for scanning each account etc etc, I would seriously consider a format! Or just delete the user accounts and recreate them.
[/FONT]
 
i wouldn't bother trying to edit the registry. i'd backup any important files and then nuke the user profile folders. new ones will then be created when they login next. this is of course assumes the default user profile isn't stuffed and that the machine is otherwise ok.
 
Cheers for the replies folks.

The problem I'm going to face when making a backup of each users data that needs to be kept is that the machine was / is so riddled with spyware that lots of seemingly innocuous data, files, pictures, docs etc are infected with various bits and bobs of nasty stuff so it's difficult to tell what is safe to backup and what isn't. :eek:

This is why I was at least going to attempt to flush out as much of it as I could before deciding which way to then "jump" - Format or continue to clean and disinfect everything without a data backup and reformat.

The owner is adamant that he doesn't want to have to lose any data at all, despite me explaining the situation. :( Honestly though, some folk are beyond belief. He told me that he lost the ability to CTRL+ALT+DEL to access the task manager about a year ago and that his Control Panel vanished about a year before that. Amazing.

I do have a can of petrol and some matches here though. :p
 
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You will just have to backup as best you can, making sure to scan and clean everything you backup. The owner is going to have to suck it up. Maybe he wont let it become such a pig sty next time! :)
 
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