Never seen this before. I created a new partition and installed Windows 2003
Server R2. I haven't done a single thing past getting the OS up and running
(no hot fixes, no service packs, no users, no AD, etc). I then logged in a
few times and made sure everything was ok. Then I shut the OS down and took
an image of it. I then deleted the partition and restored the image to test
the imaging process. Everything worked as desired... I was able to restore,
reboot, and login.

However, now, all the sudden, whenever I try to login, I'm immediately
forced into a logoff... never even seeing the desktop or start menu! I've
tried booting into safe mode, but I get the same experience. I'm trying to
login using the administrator password. Any ideas?

The ~only~ thing I can think of is the OS isn't activated, but I installed
it just last night... so I don't think that would have affected it. Ideas?

While I am not sure how relevant this will be I have had this happen to me in
WinXP systems, and while I am not sure of the cause it would appear something
gets corrupted and the only course for repair is to reinstall.   Most of the
time running a "repair" install under XP would fix the problem.

Got it "fixed". To ammend my initial post, I was doing all this on my laptop,
trying to setup a dual boot (Vista & Win2003) to have Win2003 for my demos
and presentations because no virtualization technology was really up to snuff
in terms of speed during a presentation/demo for my uses.

Anyway, when I originally installed the OS on the 2nd partition on my
primary drive, I had my DVD drive in. Then I replaced the modular DVD drive
with a 2nd HDD which had a 2 partitions. When I booted Win2003, aparently it
went haywire (it was installed on D:\) as the drive letters must have been
changed. Regardless if I rebooted the Win2003 install with the DVD drive in,
it would still be screwed up. I had to reimage the partition (no big deal)
and make sure the DVD drive is in whenever booting my Win2003 partition.

Not ideal, but issue resolved.

Show quoteHide quote

One Domain Two IP Subnets
Windows Time Service
Automated Folder replication between Windows Servers.
Server will not reboot with software mirrored drives
Setting shutdown event tracker programmatically
stop and start a service automaticly
ASPNET 2.0 service packs and patches
2003 Domain is same as domain name of external website, can't get to website now!
sorting of files on a network share
HPProliant DL380 Win 2003 Std Server Crashes