I have seen this on XP and 2000 it usually happens after removing certain malware. Have you done that recently? If so lets see if this works out for you: Boot using your Windows 2000 boot CD then you will want to Enter the recovery console.. at the command prompt go to C:/windows/system32 then type in : Dir *.exe If you find, wsaupdater.exe, type copy userinit.exe wsaupdater.exe Exit and reboot normally. You should now be able to logon. Run regedit Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon In the right pane, you should see C:WINDOWSSystem32wsaupdater.exe, Change it so that it reads: C:WINDOWSSystem32userinit.exe That should solve the problem, if the malware was the one that caused the issue. The scary thing is since more malware programs are inserting themselves into the winlogon key, this is going to be a moving target.

I have seen this on XP and 2000 it usually happens after removing certain malware. Have you done that recently? If so lets see if this works out for you: Boot using your Windows 2000 boot CD then you will want to Enter the recovery console.. at the command prompt go to C:/windows/system32 then type in : Dir *.exe If you find, wsaupdater.exe, type copy userinit.exe wsaupdater.exe Exit and reboot normally. You should now be able to logon. Run regedit Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon In the right pane, you should see C:WINDOWSSystem32wsaupdater.exe, Change it so that it reads: C:WINDOWSSystem32userinit.exe That should solve the problem, if the malware was the one that caused the issue. The scary thing is since more malware programs are inserting themselves into the winlogon key, this is going to be a moving target.