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[perkopp]

Hi.

We've come across a situation where we would need to log on a laptop as an (local) admin user to perform hardware diagnostics.
The network card seems to be faulty, so the computer can't connect to any domain resources.

When we log on with the local admin user, it fails because "...workspace containers were found, but access not granted..."

Is there any way do temporarily disable res from starting up?
We have tried to disable the res service, but logon still fails (..."workspace composer cannot continue...").

Any hints appreciated

[Iain Brighton]

Hi Perkopp,

Welcome to the forums! Effectively you need to disable the RES WM shell by setting the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell regsitry value back to 'EXPLORER.EXE'.

Now, if you can't log on locally and you can't connect to the machine remotely (due to the NIC) then you may have to use some recovery CD to be able to mount the registry hive.. HINT: you might be able to log on as an existing user and use RUNAS to launch REGEDIT.EXE permitting you to make the required change.

Good luck!
Iain