We have a couple home PC's (used mainly for gaming and saving family photos) in our house. Tonight, my wife was playing a game and her computer froze up. When she tried to do a hard boot - she was able to get through the logo screen for Windows XP Professional and click to login as admin (per the usual) but once she clicks ok - the screen goes to a blank blue screen and will not bring up the desktop. After a couple minutes an error message comes up that says;
"Microsoft visual C++ Runtime Library
program: \??\C:\windows\system32\winlogon.exe
this aplication has requested the Runtime to terminate in an unusual way. Please contact the applications support team for more information.
Also, the wallpaper photo of my daughter comes up after a few minutes. But no icons appear on the desktop.
The main thing we want to try to accomplish is saving all our family photos that she was in the process of backing up on dvd. Hoping that all this data is not lost forever.
A couple things to note about this computer - it's a home built job - built by my buddy who worked in IT at my company - he put the whole thing together about 6 years ago. Sadly he passed away last year from complications due to an injury he sustained from mixed martial arts boxing. Yes, more info than you need to know except for the fact that all the Windows discs/passwords etc were all in his possesion and I'm unable to get them ever again. I don't even have a copy of the windows xp disc he used to install it.
I wish I could tell you more about the OS/system. I tried going into the safe mode and "using last known working configuration" but these didn't solve the problem - same thing happens.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
-Knuckles (first time poster)