how to unlock a XP PC which starts up in Internet Explorer

May be some extra info is necessary:

-cntrl-alt-del is locked also
-booting in safe mode has the same problem.
- this PC is used for several years in a museum and used for some Internet Explorer links only to be used by the museum visitors. The rest is not accessable by the user. This PC is configured by a person who is not working for us anymore and there is no documentation (what's new?). So the PC starts up (O.S. is XP) and just one appication starts up (I.E.). In I.E. some links are defined and that's all. Now I need to change and add some links but I do not know how to do that since I can't startup in the nomal windows mode or even in DOS mode.

So then take it back to the museum, have them restore it to factory condition for you and take it home. They should have done that before letting you take off with it in the first place in case there's any software on there licensed to the museum, or even just issues like you describe.

Hi Jimmy,

I promised the museum to help them so I will do my best to solve this. There are no IT people in the museum.

Regards , Jan

If so, you can change whatever you need to change, assuming those linksyou need to change are in some html-page in the hard disk, and the html-pages you need to add links to are also.

Kees

1 ALT+F4 is not working. probably disabled.
2. the only thing under the SART button are
- logoff user
- startup I.E.. It starts the following file: C:/site/index.html
3. I suppose this should be the ALT + TAB keys? This shows just I.E. thumbnails
4. After using ALT + SPACE, minimizing ang maximizing is possible but closing the window is prohibited.
5. The desktop is empty.

I agree that it is some kind of kiosk mode.

I can't startup the regeditor. There are a lot of good hints in the links provided but not getting at the DOS prompt or in the regeditor makes all hints useless. Sorry.

Jan

The entire idea of locking down Windows is to thwart any way to let the user do anything but what you allow.

I think the person who did this, did a very good job,.
Bob

giving up and wiping the drive.

Try to boot into Safe Mode by pressing the F8 key repeatedly while the system begins booting. Once at the Safe Mode logon screen log into the default ADMINISTRATOR account which hopefully was never assigned a password ( if it was follow this link and read about then download and use the offline NT Password editor to REMOVE the password for the ADMINISTRATOR account - http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/ )

From there you should be able to make necessary changes per the previous links. I would also suggest creating a new Admin account.

You might also have some luck opening Windows Explorer through Internet Explorer. If the following keyboard KIOSK key combinations work give it a try:
CTRL+L Open Location dialog box
CTRL+N New window (opens in non-Kiosk mode)
CTRL+O Open Location dialog box (same as CTRL+L)

Try any or all of those key combinations to see if the dialog box opens or the new window opens. If it does type C:\ into the dialog box or the address bar of the new window. Press the enter key and Windows Explorer should open allowing you to browse to regedit.exe ( C:\windows\regedit.exe ) or to regedit32.exe ( c:\windows\system32\regedt32.exe ) - you could just as easily type the full address to the registry editor but when you specify a file Internet Explorer starts asking you about downloads which might be confusing.

If none of that works re-install Windows 'cause this horse gonna stay dead.

Thanks Edward for your help. I will do a last try with this. Later more.

Did you notice my Linux suggestion above?That's an alternative way to try.

And then, of course, you can take out the hard disk, connect it to another PC as an external disk (via an adapter or in an enclosure), change all you want and put it back. Just to be safe: make a clone or a disk image first!

Kees