Resolved "User Accounts" cpl borked for many months. Any REAL soution out there?

For several months I've been unable to open the "User Accounts" control panel on my generally wonderful XP SP3 machine.

As seen in countless posts by hordes of other befuddles people all over the internets, I get this error message:
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! An error has occurred in the script on this page
Line: 0
Char: 0
Error: Access is denied to res://C:\WINDOWS\system32\nusmgr.cpl/body.htc
Code: 0
URL: res://C:\WINDOWS\system32\nusmgr.cpl/body.hta
Do you want co continue running scripts on this page?
Yes / NO
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Countless times, the most creative solutions are proffered to the people who have been plagued by this error.

However, such solutions are proposed by people who have never seen this happen on their computers.

- Not one (NONE) of these solutions is ever reported to work.

- Proponents always say "try this ".

- Recipients say "gee, thanks so much, I tried but it does not work ".

- I can attest to the truth of the reports, as I have tried all the proposed solutions.

Microsoft blames malware. However, reports seem to indicate that the fault was injected into people's computers at the time of an automated update.

DID ANYBODY EVER SPOT A SOLUTION FOR THIS THAT IS ACTUALLY WORKING
AS OPPOSED TO BEING STRICTLY THEORETICAL AND SPECULATIVE?

Thank you in advance for spotting any REAL solution that I missed!

Filippo

 

Have you tried system file checker? XP CD in ; click start > run > sfc /scannow

A repair install may be your only option for repairing corrupt system fils if sfc doesn't work.


Other:

I had picked this up from a web site (but can't remember where), I have a file with all kinds of little solutions copied and pasted into it ....

 

Have you ever run a registry cleaner?

 

Thank you everybody!


MitchellCooley: "control userpasswords2" works!

I called it from a "run-as-admin" shell while logged into the desktop as normal user, and it lets me do everything I need.

This is much better than the control panel, as the latter can't be called up "run-as-admin" and requires first logging into the desktop as admin.

This is important, as my goal was to be able to generate a virgin admin account if the main one gets mangled. I had some mysterious TRANSITORY problem logging into the main admin account, checked for hardware issues, found absolutely none, backed up everything... But then I wondered... what happens if you back up a bit-rotten account?

Better have some fresh one ready than having to hack your way into admin privileges...


Arie: you're right.

I think it might be a bizarre and fairly rare interaction between an update and some pre-existing and previously harmless condition.

Reports are probably just several hundreds, most or all seem to point to something out of the blue (which is the way updates get injected if set to full auto), none mentions any positives in scanning for malware, and even Microsoft is at loss of an explanation or an effective cure.

Rare diseases don't get much investigation.


mattman: yes, I did run Ccleaner (beside Malwarebytes, Spybot, ClamAV).

Just my usual crop of unused extensions, nothing remarkable. Also, I had NOT scanned and cleaned the registry in several weeks, in all likelihood longer than the last successful use of the .cpl, so it should not be something the cleaner might have wrongly removed.


In short, there's a workaround that does away with the (frankly a bit silly) dependency on Internet Explorer and sidesteps the problem. I'm sorry for those who went as far as reverting to a previous version of IE to no avail...

 

I glad you got it fixed. happy computing