I just ran the "issues" tool within CCleaner and wiped out a bunch of registry entries. I did this while logged in not under my own account, but under my daughter's XP account. When I finished, I realized that I am unable to switch between users anymore. When I click "log off" under the start menu, the dialog box is now transparent and does not contain words. I can see the 2 buttons, (one of which is used when the user wants to "logoff" and the other is for "switch user"). Although there are no labels associated with the buttons, I am familiar with the dialog box from memory. If I click "switch user", I am allowed to leave my daughter's account, but when I am at the page where all of the other user accounts are listed and I try to switch to any one of them, a message appears which says that Windows cannot switch accounts. It suggests that I try again, but that if the problem persists that I should re-start my system. I am concerned that if i restart that I won't be able to get into any of the user accounts, not even my daughters, and then I will be essentially locked out of my system.
I decided that I should probably restore the old registry (which I had dutifully backed up.) However, when I went to merge the saved registry, a message appeared indicating that not all of the registry items could be restored, or something like that. After i attempted the merge, I went back to determine if i was now able to switch accounts, but unfortunately, I still cannot. My next thought was to do a system restore under XP. However, because my daughter does not have Administrator priveleges, and because I can't switch to my own user account (where I am the Administrator), I don't have the ability to use System Restore.
I am starting to get panicky. Can anyone suggest a way out of this?