Whenever I start my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop computer the message appears “userinit.exe - Application Error. The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application”. Clicking the OK button causes the desktop background to load, but there is no taskbar, Start menu, or desktop icons. The only way to access any programs is using CTRL-ALT-DEL to open the Task Manager and go to the “File” menu > “New Task”. The computer is running Windows XP Home Edition.

Userinit.exe is a Windows system process that handles various aspects of the Windows startup sequence, mainly pertaining to loading the Windows graphical interface for the user. Because the userinit.exe process is not firing correctly the graphical interface is not loading completely (as evidenced by the lack of the taskbar, Start menu, or desktop icons). Commonly, problems with userinit.exe are caused by virus damage to the computer, which is an important aspect that we need to investigate. However, we will get the computer working properly first and then discuss the potential pitfalls which may eventuate due to the problem being virus-damage related.

To begin, we will see whether the userinit.exe process can be fixed so that it correctly loads on startup. Boot up your computer and then go through the logon process so the computer boots to the desktop background without anything else on the screen. Once this occurs, open the Task Manager and go to the “File” menu > “New Task” and run “regedit” (without the quotes) then click OK. The Windows Registry Editor window should appear. The Registry is the portion of Windows which contains many of the system and application specific settings, including the setting which tells Windows to load the userinit.exe process. If this reference has become corrupted, or is otherwise incorrect, it could cause the problem currently being experienced. As our first troubleshooting step, we will check whether this setting is wrong. In the Windows Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. In the right-hand pane you should see an entry called “Userinit”. The value of this entry should be “C:\Windows\System32\Userinit.exe,” (without the quotes, but including the trailing comma). If the entry for Userinit differs at all from this then you will need to correct the value. Should you need to correct the value, right-click on the “Userinit” entry and select “Modify”. In the window that appears, for the “Value data” type in the correct value “C:\Windows\System32\Userinit.exe,”. Make sure you type this exactly including the trailing comma, but excluding the quotation marks. Once this has been done, restart the computer and check whether you can now login to the computer correctly.

Should the computer now load into Windows correctly, with the taskbar, Start menu, and desktop icons, you may think that we have solved the problem. However, it is likely that the problem may return. As previously mentioned, the issue with userinit.exe not loading is often caused by virus or other malware damage on the computer. Therefore, we need to make sure the virus or malware is not still present on your computer otherwise the problem may return. I suggest that you conduct a full scan of your computer using an antivirus software package that has been updated with the latest virus definition files. If you currently do not have antivirus software on your computer then a good free antivirus package is AVG Anti-Virus, available for download from free.avg.com . Once you have completed a virus scan on your computer you should then complete an adware and spyware scan on the computer. I suggest that you download and scan the computer with Ad-Aware Free (www.lavasoft.de), Spybot Search & Destroy (www.safer-networking.org), and Windows Defender (www.microsoft.com/downloads). These three utilities should be able to detect and remove most threats found on the computer.

The above procedure assumed that your computer came back to normal operation after making the registry modification. However, there are several other scenarios which may have emerged. First, you may have found that once you made the registry modification the problem continued, or perhaps the registry setting was already correct and did not need to be modified. Second, you may have been unable to open the Registry Editor and instead a message appeared saying that a security restriction on the computer has prevented you from opening the Registry Editor (a common problem should you have a virus or malware present on the computer). In either of these situations, you will likely need to complete either a repair installation or reinstallation of Windows to resolve the problem.

Before we embark on the more serious processes of reinstalling Windows, we will try repairing the current Windows installation. In the first instance try running the System File Checker. This will scan the computer for any missing or corrupt Windows system files and replace these files with known good copies from the original Windows installation CD. Boot and login to the computer so that you are presented with the standard screen with the background wallpaper but nothing else. Then, open the Task Manager and go to “File” > “New Task”. In the Run box that appears, type “sfc /scannow” (without the quotes, but note the space between the sfc and forward slash character) and click OK. The System File Checker utility should start operation. You may be prompted for the Windows XP CD while the System File Checker is running, so make sure you have the CD handy. Once the System File Checker has completed operations it will exit silently with no user feedback. Once this has occurred you can restart the computer and check whether the problem continues.

Should the problem continue, the next step is to complete a recovery installation of Windows XP. In theory, a repair installation of Windows XP should not result in any data on your computer being lost. Instead, all the Windows XP system files and configurations will be reset to their default values, hopefully fixing whatever has caused the problem being experienced. Nevertheless, before embarking on this procedure it is essential that you backup all important data on your computer. While this procedure should not result in data being lost from your computer things could always go awry resulting in data loss. This process should still be achievable (even with the Windows interface not loading correctly) as you can still open Windows Explorer by using the Task Manager New Task functionality. In the Windows Task Manager, go the “File” menu > “New Task” and type “explorer” then click OK. A Windows Explorer window should appear. My recommended method for backing up data is to use an external hard drive. This is the most convenient and cost-effective method, since a 1 TB USB hard drive will cost you around $250. Once you have backed-up all your important data you can commence the repair installation of Windows. There are excellent instructions on conducting a repair installation of Windows XP at the following website: www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm . I strongly suggest that you read the entire article and also print a copy for reference during the procedure (a PDF version of the article is available at www.michaelstevenstech.com/pdf/XPrepairinstall.pdf).

In the event that the repair installation of Windows XP does not resolve the problem, your final option is to reformat your hard drive and do a full reinstallation of Windows. As you will be formatting your hard drive this will result in all data on your computer being lost. Therefore, it is essential that all data on your computer that you wish to keep is backed-up before embarking upon this procedure. Having backed-up all the data you wish to keep, restart your computer and boot from the Windows CD (just like when attempting the repair installation) and then proceed through the steps to setup a new installation of Windows XP. When you are prompted about the location to install Windows XP select the current hard drive and partition and then select the option to format that partition. This will erase all the data. Once that has completed, Windows will commence the installation.