Cannot Unlock XP SP2 Pro Computers Since Hotfixes

I distributed 11 hotfixes to a group of 289 XP Pro SP2 systems via SMS last
July. The majority of the computers only installed KB933566 (IE Cumulative
Update), KB935839 (Win32 API), and KB935840 (Schannel). Starting about an
hour after the first reboots, a small number of these systems are giving a
greyed out logon panel when you try to unlock the computer from a password
protected screensaver. The majority of the incidents happened after a timer
invocation of the screensaver (10 minutes by system policy), but there have
been occasions when the user invoked it via Ctrl-Alt-Del - Lock Computer.
When this happens, the user presses Ctrl-Alt-Del to unlock the computer, the
UERID field is blank and greyed out, and the password field is greyed out.
If you hit enter, a logon failure 529 error is generated in the Security
Event Log with a logon type code of 7 (unlock), and the User Name in the
event message is blank. This has been reported on about 15% of the systems
since the original incident. Most people do not experience the incident more
than once or twice, but a small number of computers are seeing it 2 or 3
times a month. The only recovery we have found so far is to power cycle the
machine, so the engineers lose whatever they were working on when they took a
phone call, grabbed a cup of coffee, or whatever. I have not been able to
find anything common between these systems in the Application, Security, or
System event logs at the time of the failure. I have uninstalled one of more
of the hotfixes from computers that have had this problem more than once, but
that has not helped.

I have located two other references to this problem that have suggested
older versions of VNC to be the culprit (most of these computers have version
4.1.2 installed) or a USB mouse (most of these computers still have a PS2
mouse).

George Rhoads wrote:
> I distributed 11 hotfixes to a group of 289 XP Pro SP2 systems via
> SMS last July. The majority of the computers only installed
> KB933566 (IE Cumulative Update), KB935839 (Win32 API), and KB935840
> (Schannel). Starting about an hour after the first reboots, a
> small number of these systems are giving a greyed out logon panel
> when you try to unlock the computer from a password protected
> screensaver. The majority of the incidents happened after a timer
> invocation of the screensaver (10 minutes by system policy), but
> there have been occasions when the user invoked it via Ctrl-Alt-Del
> - Lock Computer. When this happens, the user presses Ctrl-Alt-Del
> to unlock the computer, the UERID field is blank and greyed out,
> and the password field is greyed out. If you hit enter, a logon
> failure 529 error is generated in the Security Event Log with a
> logon type code of 7 (unlock), and the User Name in the event
> message is blank. This has been reported on about 15% of the
> systems since the original incident. Most people do not experience
> the incident more than once or twice, but a small number of
> computers are seeing it 2 or 3 times a month. The only recovery we
> have found so far is to power cycle the machine, so the engineers
> lose whatever they were working on when they took a phone call,
> grabbed a cup of coffee, or whatever. I have not been able to find
> anything common between these systems in the Application, Security,
> or System event logs at the time of the failure. I have
> uninstalled one of more of the hotfixes from computers that have
> had this problem more than once, but that has not helped.
>
> I have located two other references to this problem that have
> suggested older versions of VNC to be the culprit (most of these
> computers have version
> 4.1.2 installed) or a USB mouse (most of these computers still have
> a PS2 mouse).

Last JULY?! Like July 2007?

Nothing has been done to these machines since then?

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

No. In mid August I was assigned to another network, and it is just in the
past 3 weeks I have been back here. This network has been on autopilot for a
long time.

"Shenan Stanley" wrote:

> George Rhoads wrote:
> > I distributed 11 hotfixes to a group of 289 XP Pro SP2 systems via
> > SMS last July. The majority of the computers only installed
> > KB933566 (IE Cumulative Update), KB935839 (Win32 API), and KB935840
> > (Schannel). Starting about an hour after the first reboots, a
> > small number of these systems are giving a greyed out logon panel
> > when you try to unlock the computer from a password protected
> > screensaver. The majority of the incidents happened after a timer
> > invocation of the screensaver (10 minutes by system policy), but
> > there have been occasions when the user invoked it via Ctrl-Alt-Del
> > - Lock Computer. When this happens, the user presses Ctrl-Alt-Del
> > to unlock the computer, the UERID field is blank and greyed out,
> > and the password field is greyed out. If you hit enter, a logon
> > failure 529 error is generated in the Security Event Log with a
> > logon type code of 7 (unlock), and the User Name in the event
> > message is blank. This has been reported on about 15% of the
> > systems since the original incident. Most people do not experience
> > the incident more than once or twice, but a small number of
> > computers are seeing it 2 or 3 times a month. The only recovery we
> > have found so far is to power cycle the machine, so the engineers
> > lose whatever they were working on when they took a phone call,
> > grabbed a cup of coffee, or whatever. I have not been able to find
> > anything common between these systems in the Application, Security,
> > or System event logs at the time of the failure. I have
> > uninstalled one of more of the hotfixes from computers that have
> > had this problem more than once, but that has not helped.
> >
> > I have located two other references to this problem that have
> > suggested older versions of VNC to be the culprit (most of these
> > computers have version
> > 4.1.2 installed) or a USB mouse (most of these computers still have
> > a PS2 mouse).
>
> Last JULY?! Like July 2007?
>
> Nothing has been done to these machines since then?
>
> --
> Shenan Stanley
> MS-MVP
> --
> How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>
>
>