userinit.exe failed to inititialize...

I'm having a difficult problem to deal with.

A few days ago I rebooted my PC after the latest updates. I'm not saying this is the cause just giving a time frame.

Everything boots up fine till it get's to the welcome screen...then a pop up with the following message:

Userinit.exe failed to initialize (0x0000006)

The screen then goes black and nothing happens for about a minute then I have the option to go online for help...of which there are no fixes available. This action gives me access to the internet...which works on a black screen behind it.

Ctrl-Alt-Del works and allows me to reboot..in which the process repeats it's self...if I am lucky it boots up fine but the system is pretty sluggish, which suggest a virus of some kind but a Google search to fix this problem seems to offer as many fixes as possibilities and not many are successful.

Things I have tried:

Disk scan = No errors

Restore point= Doesn't fix it

Avast Virus scan= revealed a Trojan and it placed kernel32.dll & wsock32.dll. I deleted the trojan. I still have the other two files in the chest.

There's a few other things I could try like a Windows repair but I want to hopefully try other things before I take that step.

Any suggestions welcomed.

Just remembered something that may help...the problems started after installing the latest Nvidia Drivers. I will try an earlier restore point.

Clevo said:

I'm having a difficult problem to deal with.

A few days ago I rebooted my PC after the latest updates. I'm not saying this is the cause just giving a time frame.

Everything boots up fine till it get's to the welcome screen...then a pop up with the following message:

Userinit.exe failed to initialize (0x0000006)

The screen then goes black and nothing happens for about a minute then I have the option to go online for help...of which there are no fixes available. This action gives me access to the internet...which works on a black screen behind it.

works and allows me to reboot..in which the process repeats it's self...if I am lucky it boots up fine but the system is pretty sluggish, which suggest a virus of some kind but a Google search to fix this problem seems to offer as many fixes as possibilities and not many are successful.

Things I have tried:

Disk scan = No errors

Restore point= Doesn't fix it

Avast Virus scan= revealed a Trojan and it placed kernel32.dll & wsock32.dll. I deleted the trojan. I still have the other two files in the chest.

There's a few other things I could try like a Windows repair but I want to hopefully try other things before I take that step.

Any suggestions welcomed.

Click to expand...

Hey Clevo,

This sounds like a virus infection
Start up to your black screen press Ctrl-Alt-Del in task manager select file, new task, type in explorer.exe and press enter. This should give you your desktop back

Pooch

Avast found a trojan. Id assume thats your problem. Its probably messed around with system files.

Your probably looking for an answer that doesnt require a reinstall but oh well if i were you id back up my data and run scans with the free versions of avg etc. as well as your avast scanner to make sure theres no spyware or viruses present and then do a full reinstall.

You dont say how many hard drives you have so il assume you have 1. I only have one hard drive which i partioned in two with my documents folder including app data going on a seperate partition so in the event of a reinstall all i have to do is install vista and the programmes the run my .bat file that applies my tweaks. It just saves time if a reinstall is needed.

Hey Clevo if it is a virus/Trojan It seems you should be looking for Vundo and apparently Avast might not pick this up

Pooch

pooch said:

Hey Clevo if it is a virus/Trojan It seems you should be looking for Vundo and apparently Avast might not pick this up

Pooch

Click to expand...

Thats why you should scan with avg, spyware doctor, avast etc then reinstall as a quick google will show what this virus does. Even though you remove the virus its already done a lot of damage to your system adding dll's etc so you should do what i said in my previous post and in the future stop looking at porn

Just in case, I'm rinning Vudofix...it's scanning now.

This is a pain and thanks for all the suggestions so far.

I have 2 hard drives, there will be a few things I will have to back up but if I have to go for a re-install then that's what I have to do.

If I fix it I will report back

Some observations:

Still scanning for Vundo and so far it hasn't picked up anything but I noticed that during the scan both Avast! & vundo fix take a really long time to scan the userini.exe file so I am now suspecting that that file has corrupted in some way...

Stay tuned...

Edit... Vundo fix didn;t detect the virus. Vundofix is a dedicated Vundo trojan remover.

Going to try a repair install

I've eliminated the possibility it's a virus...(as far as many tests go)

I still have the problem but if I wait long enough and i have the option to check online for solutions I can see this in the "details" section

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: InPageError
Error Status Code: 00000000
Faulting Media Type: 00000000
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 3081
Additional Information 1: fa3e
Additional Information 2: ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900
Additional Information 3: fa3e
Additional Information 4: ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900

I have no idea what this means

Yeah its a pain and sorry but i have no idea what that problem signature means. I really recommend a clean install and not just a repair, heres some reasons why When should I re-format? How should I reinstall? Security - dslreports.com

Basically once you'v got a virus your pc's f****d. The safest thing for you and everybody else connected to the internet is to do a reformat and reinstall. A repair will only fix any system files that have changed not clean the system of added files etc.

stew2 said:

Basically once you'v got a virus your pc's f****d. The safest thing for you and everybody else connected to the internet is to do a reformat and reinstall. A repair will only fix any system files that have changed not clean the system of added files etc.

Click to expand...

+1 for this suggestion.

Once a system has been compromised, the admin can never be sure what other malicious payload has been left behind, even if the original hole is closed (through a patch or user re-education [with a stick]). The virus which was detected may have been of a common garden variety, but there's no telling whether it was subtly modified to carry and deposit something else.

Hence, the rule is simple: for systems considered important, a virus infestation must inflexibly be followed by a full rebuild from known-clean media. Anything else is risky, to a varying degree.

Clevo said:

I've eliminated the possibility it's a virus...(as far as many tests go)

I still have the problem but if I wait long enough and i have the option to check online for solutions I can see this in the "details" section

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: InPageError
Error Status Code: 00000000
Faulting Media Type: 00000000
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 3081
Additional Information 1: fa3e
Additional Information 2: ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900
Additional Information 3: fa3e
Additional Information 4: ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900

I have no idea what this means

Click to expand...

I do not know either but (ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900) comes up as Windows Host Process Rundll32, which funny enough is one of the things this Vundo changes

How did the repair install go?

Pooch

If you are still not certain that its not a virus a scan with Mbam might be in order

Yeah... I spoke with my PC manufacturer they were a bit stumped with the problem.

I have swung back to thinking it's a virus...

Rather than go through and do it all myself they offered to do it for me...which I thought was nice of them.

I have managed to get in long enough to do a back up of my files (and e-mails)

Luckily most of my work is in the second drive and it had enough room to back up my Windows drive.

Might even take this opportunity to upgrade a few components...

Clevo said:

Yeah... I spoke with my PC manufacturer they were a bit stumped with the problem.

I have swung back to thinking it's a virus...

Click to expand...

If it is this Vundo a lot of people say that it is a pain to remove completely

Clevo said:

Rather than go through and do it all myself they offered to do it for me...which I thought was nice of them.

Click to expand...

Yes that is a good service :D something that is getting harder to find

Clevo said:

Might even take this opportunity to upgrade a few components...

Click to expand...

Sounds like the ideal time to me

Pooch

Clevo said:

I've eliminated the possibility it's a virus...(as far as many tests go)

I still have the problem but if I wait long enough and i have the option to check online for solutions I can see this in the "details" section

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: InPageError
Error Status Code: 00000000
Faulting Media Type: 00000000
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 3081
Additional Information 1: fa3e
Additional Information 2: ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900
Additional Information 3: fa3e
Additional Information 4: ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900

I have no idea what this means

Click to expand...

Hi,

Start registry editor and drill down the key hkey local machine\software\Microsoft\windowsnt\current version\winlogon in the right pane double click on Userinit the value of the userinit should be C:\Windows\system32 \userinit.exe if not copy and paste this(C:\Windows\system32\userinit.exe)

Let me know the result

delphin said:

Clevo said:

I've eliminated the possibility it's a virus...(as far as many tests go)

I still have the problem but if I wait long enough and i have the option to check online for solutions I can see this in the "details" section

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: InPageError
Error Status Code: 00000000
Faulting Media Type: 00000000
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 3081
Additional Information 1: fa3e
Additional Information 2: ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900
Additional Information 3: fa3e
Additional Information 4: ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900

I have no idea what this means

Click to expand...

Hi,

Start registry editor and drill down the key hkey local machine\software\Microsoft\windowsnt\current version\winlogon in the right pane double click on Userinit the value of the userinit should be C:\Windows\system32 \userinit.exe if not copy and paste this(C:\Windows\system32\userinit.exe)

Let me know the result

Click to expand...

------------------

Tried that...it's all there. I'm feeling lazy so I will get it repaired. Thanks though

OK..hard drive reformatted, Vista clean installed. Everything went well... the report i got back is that it wasn't a virus nor bad sectors on the harddrive. It was simply Vista going a bit nuts.

Now...a problem that I might need to start on another thread after doing some reseach..

Basically...I did a back up of files and folders (i've done this twice one on my secnd drive, the other on an external drive). They both took an hour each to perform but all I have left is a 1kb .bin type file. Something is not right