I know someone else has asked about this error message, but the incidence here is quite different. I am running a Dell Inspiron 1420 laptop on which there has only ever been one account -- mine. One day the computer suddenly crashed and when I restarted it, my desktop would not load, none of my programs would run, and I encountered the message listed in the subject line of this post. I enabled the Administrator Account, tried to manually modify the registry as another thread instructed me to do. That did not work. There was no duplicate account key with a .bak ending. Even after I accessed the hidden Administrator account, I encountered the same error message. The computer will not let me create any new accounts. I am not linked in to any servers, nor is my account a part of any larger network. My home does not even have internet, and I was not online when the problem occurred. If anyone can help with this problem I would greatly appreciate it. I am totally lost.

Hi, This issue may occur when the following situations are true: 1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SvcHost was with wrong permissions 2. The Windows Firewall was enabled and wrong configured. At this point, please grand proper permission on the registry key and disable Windows firewall to check the result. Regards,Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.