Resolved XP Pro logs on then immediately logs off

I am working on a friends Pentium M refurbished laptop. When I got the system and turned it on, I immediately got a warning that it was infected with the worm.win32.netsky virus. there is also a box on the desktop that says the system has been stopped due to a system malfunction. I put norton security 2010 on the system, updated the virus definitions, and scanned the system. It found a a few viruses and tons of cookies that are now eliminated.

After finishing the scan, I rebooted the system. it comes up to the login screen but when I click on a user the systems starts, goes to a desktop screen for a moment, then goes back to the login screen telling me it is closing network connections and logging off. multiple reboots give the same results.

I looked around on the web for some answers and tried replacing the userinit.exe file with one from my original XP installation cd. same results.
I also replaced the winlogon.exe file, it makes no difference.

This is the abridged version of what I have tried, but I'm out of ideas.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

Hi net4profit,

This is Mike from the Norton Authorized Support Team.

Since your computer was infected by a worm, there is the possibility that some critical system files were infected and then removed. This can cause the symptoms that you describe. The only thing I would suggest is that you try to do a repair install of Windows.

Thank you,
Mike

 

Looks like you were both right. I used Pete's SW to clear up the system so I could at least log in. After I got back to that point, it still would not allow me to start up in safe mode. I got rid of over 300 problems between NAV 2010 and SB 1.6. there were still numerous problems, such as it did not recognize my USB ports anymore, device manager would run but the window was empty!
I copied all of the data over to a portable drive and rebuilt the system from scratch, everything is running correctly now. Thank you both for your help.