Troubleshooting the "Local policy on this machine does not permit you to logon interactively" error

This one was a pickle, and even after solving it we don't know what caused it in the first place. One moment we were fine, logged in as admin, fiddling with the firewall. Then after a restart we get the logon error message. Can't logon to domain, can't logon to local account.

Go all around and finally found three articles of use.

1. Microsoft KB276590 article
   
   This one was the first to point in the right direction.


2. Microsoft KB279664 article
   
   This one gave info on syntax for NTRights.


Unfortunately, I was getting an Open Policy error when I tried to use NTRights.

3. Forum posting on the subject
   
   This one gave a hint to what was keeping the above from working. Tried to establish a link to the pc, but kept getting "Network path not found". Finally clued in and booted up in Safe Mode to disable the firewall, and voila! NTRights works and we can log in again! What a relief!

So, finally got it stable, but now have to get all the components working again. Hope to be up and operational by end of day tomorrow.

And all this with little to no experience as any kind of admin (sys or network), and with zilch training. Damn Comp Sci degree! Everyone thinks I'm supposed to know all about computers... ;-)