PCTech Forums

I recently ran into a situation where on XP the Control Panel was missing from the start menu and any attempt to bring it up from the run command resulted in an error stating that access was denied due to some restrictions put in place on the PC. However, even logged in as Administrator, I still get the same error message. I even reset the HelpAssistant password with ERD Commander and tried to log in that way. I can log in, but still have restrictions. I also tried a repair install. That did not work, finally, I went into the registry and reset all permissions, but all that did was present a new problem on login where lsass.exe could not be found or was corrupted. Thereby locking me out. We ended up doing a fresh install, but I was wondering if there is a way around all this.

Axelation,

I have seen more than one lsass.exe trojan/malware infection.

Please download HijackThis http://downloads.malwareremoval.com/hijackthis.zip and save it to your desktop.

To extract HijackThis:

1. Right-click your file HijackThis.zip and from the menu select "Extract All".
2. The Extraction Wizard Window will appear, Click "Next".
3. Click Browse and navigate to "C:\" or the "C:\Program Files" and click "Create A New Folder" and call it "HJT" or "HijackThis" or whatever that is easy to remember and then click OK.
4. Click the Extract button.
5. Close the HijackThis.zip dialogue box.

Now double-click on hijackthis.exe and when the window opens, Press the Scan now and save a logfile button and then when it is done, copy and paste the contents of the notepad it opens as a reply to this post.

No, read it again please. This was not the result of a trojan...this was a restriction set by a user, and trying to remove the restriction actually caused the lsass problem.

According to my experience when I've seen simular things happen a fresh clean install is the best plan of action. Though if you have system recovery turned on you could have tried to go back to a later date to see if that works.
*note for next time: before makeing changes in the registry create a backup (regedit, right click my computer click export and save it) by doing this if making changes to the registry makes things worse you can enter safe mode and double click the back up and you should be back where you started from.