Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

I changed the logonui.exe file, now I can't log in. Help!

Sep 7, 2015 11:13AM PDT

Hello,

I didn't like the logon screen in Windows 10, so I replaced logonui.exe with a Windows 7 version of it, and renamed the Windows 10 version of it as logonuiX.exe Now the screen is blank when my computer starts up, and I can't log in to even reverse the changes.

Can anybody please help me with this situation? I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

Michael Jones

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Exactly what the recovery key is for.
Sep 7, 2015 12:17PM PDT

But they elected to not copy that or the files/system they can't lose.

- Collapse -
Press CTRL-ALT-DEL key combo
Sep 7, 2015 12:39PM PDT

see if the logon box pops up for you, since the User Manager from key combo window key + U did it. If it will come up where you can see it, that should get you back into your system.

- Collapse -
It doesn't come up because...
Sep 7, 2015 12:43PM PDT

I'm using Windows 10, which doesn't offer the classic logon dialog box.

- Collapse -
hold the CTRL and ALT down and
Sep 7, 2015 12:48PM PDT

hit the del key two or three times. Takes at least twice in XP. I'm booting w10 right now to check that out.

- Collapse -
Doesn't work.
Sep 7, 2015 12:56PM PDT

No logon box appears, even if I press CTRL + ALT then DEL 2 or 3 times.

- Collapse -
Here's a long shot.
Sep 7, 2015 1:01PM PDT

Pull the drive and pop in a new clean drive, Install 10 like you did before. DO NOT TOUCH THE TPM or any BIOS settings. After it's running add the old drive and see if you can fish out your files. LONG SHOT!

- Collapse -
try this
Sep 7, 2015 1:05PM PDT

fresh boot to the black screen. Press the down arrow. type in your password. Press Enter. Your login box may be there, just hidden on monitor to you.

- Collapse -
Nothing doing
Sep 7, 2015 1:10PM PDT

I think that the boxes aren't there at all, and that the logonui process crashed.

- Collapse -
I just checked in win10
Sep 7, 2015 1:15PM PDT

and now from fresh boot you hit the UP arrow instead. They just can't leave something that simple alone?! Try it again but using the UP arrow after boot, and then enter password, press Enter.

- Collapse -
That didn't work either.
Sep 7, 2015 1:21PM PDT

I honestly believe that logonui is the process responsible for allowing users to enter credentials to log on, and that logonui is gone.

- Collapse -
stands for
Sep 7, 2015 1:29PM PDT

"log on user interface" so maybe it's not just the images, but the log in program too. All I can think of left is to try F8 to Safe Mode start hitting the key soon as possible on boot and keep doing it.

http://www.dlltool.com/articles/Logonui-exe/


http://www.file.net/process/logonui.exe.html


How to replace LogonUI.exe File:
Step one: Put system installation CD into the computer
Step two: Press WINDOWS KEY + R
Step three: Type this content expand D:\i386\logonui.ex_ %windir%\system32\logonui.exe and press Enter

- Collapse -
the above may work
Sep 7, 2015 1:37PM PDT

depends on if logonui,exe is part of the bootloader or part of the system, because some parts of the boot system by necessity isn't encrypted and I'd expect the logon to possibly not be encrypted.

- Collapse -
(NT) It's part of the system.
Sep 7, 2015 1:40PM PDT
- Collapse -
I can't do that.
Sep 7, 2015 1:38PM PDT

1. For some reason Microsoft disabled F8 in Windows 10 to make it more "modern". I'm sick of this movement of making everything "modern" when everything is uglier, options are hidden so we can't fix problems, and when something goes wrong, I see a message like "something went wrong" but WHAT went wrong? It's just making technology dumber.

2. My drive is encrypted, so I can't access the drive through the command prompt.

- Collapse -
You can get a command prompt?!
Sep 7, 2015 1:49PM PDT

what happens when you run dir on it?

- Collapse -
Nothing shows up.
Sep 7, 2015 1:53PM PDT

The drive is encrypted, and I don't have the key.

- Collapse -
I'm out of ideas
Sep 7, 2015 2:05PM PDT

read the thread again, maybe something will kick an idea out. You are just a window or logon away. Try Rob's trick, might work. Try Truecrypt on a booted drive or Linux distro and if you know the passkey, password, or whatever is used to set the AES encryption on Bit Locker, maybe the same used with AES encryption in Truecrypt might then allow access to the drive so you can change the longonui.exe file, or repair it. Hopefully you only changed the name of the old one so it could be changed back and didn't overwrite it.

- Collapse -
one more idea
Sep 7, 2015 2:07PM PDT

Bit Locker doesn't need TPM to be loaded and used, so do Rob's idea and install BitLocker onto it and use the same encryption method with same access key or passphrase and maybe you can access the drive.

- Collapse -
My long shot is just that.
Sep 7, 2015 2:30PM PDT

But once in a while you have clients that won't do it. Just last week picked up an over 500GB laptop drive new for under 50 bucks. I won't say how low but compared to recovery fees, well this thread is a poster child about Encryption without backup.

My method is a long shot but worth a try.