Prob after messing with msconfig [sound gone, desktop not right]

Hi, wonder if anyone could help, basically through another problem i turned everything off in the services tab (bar the essentials) aswell as the startup tab, rebooted. Then turned everything back on and opening it now every box is checked, but still cant get any sound, certain programs dont run and the desktop has gone to a different theme/colour which i cant change back. Any ideas. Thankyou.

admin note: as specified in the forum posting rules, please make your titles more specific to the problem. I've ammended this one.
Newt

 

It sounds like you corrupted one of your hive files by disabling services using msconfig (You should always use the service manager accessed by typing services.msc in the start/ run box and hit enter or through admin tools in start/ programs). I also strongly advise against using msconfig as a startup manager, choosing instead to recommend Codestuff starter
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/starter.html a great free process viewer and startup manager.
It lets you disable for an individual user or for all users , it gives more info about programs if you double click the entry.


The first thing to try is to run system restore (start/programs/ accessories/ system / system restore)choose restore to a previous state
and choose a restore point from before you messed things up.

My suggestion is that you try the following
Go to start/ run and type
control userpasswords2
hit enter
choose change administrator password and give it one
Boot to safe mode (go to msconfig and on the boot.ini tab choose safe boot . You will have to reverse this to get to normal mode later, then reboot)
Log in to safe mode with the user name Administrator (not your account) ,use the password you just set.
Go to control panel/ user accounts / create a new account.
Create a new account with a new username and password and give it administrator priveleges.
Remove the check for safe boot in msconfig, restart computer and login to the new account and see if things work.
If so you will need to rescue what data you can from the old account ( choose to share it and copy it to the new one, use export for email etc)
then you will want to delete the old account when done.

If that does not fix it you will want to do a repair install of XP.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

 

Thanks for reply oshwyn, forgot to mention this has also had an effect on my system restore so havent got any restore points, tried what you suggested with the new user account and unfortunately didnt work....looks like a repair job