Server 2003 Ctrl-Alt-Del Issue

[Andie]

Odd issue. Ctrl-Alt-Del won't bring up the login screen. If I do Ctrl-Alt-Del and then click on the blue Help link on the opening screen, I get the login prompt. But now the computer is locked, so no blue Help and I can't get the login screen.

 

Tried the following:

 

1. Keyboard replacement - no good. Anyway, once I can get logged in, the keyboard is fine. I can also use the keyboard to bring up the on screen keyboard (WinKey+U) even when the computer is locked.

2. RDP in and check Event log. RDP works. Nothing relevant in event log that I can see.

3. VNC and sending Ctrl-Alt-Del also doesn't work.

4. Googled the issue and can't find anything there that looks as if it will help.

5. Sophos is up to date and nothing has been picked up.

 

I am going to reboot at lunchtime, all being well, in the hope that this will resolve the issue. But any help from anyone who has had this and fixed it would be great!

Edited October 22, 2012 by Andie

[Andie]

Well, the restart didn't work. I had to do it from RDP on a laptop. Appeared to run from that end, left things running (I thought), get to the server and find it still locked. Doesn't look as if it has restarted at all! And now I can't RDP in either! Looks like I am going to have to simulate a power cut at the end of school today.....

[oxide54]

Well, the restart didn't work. I had to do it from RDP on a laptop. Appeared to run from that end, left things running (I thought), get to the server and find it still locked. Doesn't look as if it has restarted at all! And now I can't RDP in either! Looks like I am going to have to simulate a power cut at the end of school today.....

 

shutdown -f -r -t 0 -m \\SERVERNAME

[Michael]

I've seen similar problems before on 2003 server. It was due to explorer.exe being problematic.

[glennda]

I have vague recollections of some APC software doing this to @littleMiss i think - although I could be completely wrong!

[oxide54]

i think its just server 2003 tbh, i've seen it a few times. had to use one the other day. jesus really appreciate how much of an advance 2008 R2 is.

[glennda]

i think its just server 2003 tbh, i've seen it a few times. had to use one the other day. jesus really appreciate how much of an advance 2008 R2 is.

 

SBS2003 is even worse! but yes 2008r2 is very good most of the time!

[Andie]

shutdown -f -r -t 0 -m \\SERVERNAME

 

Thanks, I did find the shutdown command line info online, but got the order of the forced switch wrong, so server started shutdown but waited forever for processes to stop. Did a power button job at lunchtime today, and so far so good - can now use Ctrl-Alt-Del. Don't know how long it will last though....

[Andie]

I've seen similar problems before on 2003 server. It was due to explorer.exe being problematic.

 

Any more details about this? It would be good to try and fix this before it happens again.

[Michael]

Any more details about this? It would be good to try and fix this before it happens again.

 

Unfortunately no, but doing a server migration 2003 > 2008 R2, wiping the existing server, then putting everything back did the trick.

 

I've seen some utilities where you can see Task Manager remotely. At least (in theory) you could kill explorer.exe and restart the process if it is that in your case.

[oxide54]

Thanks, I did find the shutdown command line info online, but got the order of the forced switch wrong, so server started shutdown but waited forever for processes to stop. Did a power button job at lunchtime today, and so far so good - can now use Ctrl-Alt-Del. Don't know how long it will last though....

 

in that case you could have used pskill.exe from process tools by sys internals. and run

 

pskill -t \\servername winlogon.exe

 

PsKill