Q: When I start & shutdown my PC a dialog box appears which contains a drop down
menu with options- Log off, Shutdown, restart & standby. This dialog box
started to appear only when I added an extra password protected account in my
windows. After about a month, the account was deleted but my earlier start
interface, i.e. a blue image box containing 3 menus (Standby, shutdown &
restart) never returned. Under windows customization, I could not find any
options for reverting to original position.

Can anybody guide me how to bring back menu based interface during starting &
shutdown in my XP machine?

Ans: Sure, just click on Start - Control Panel - User Accounts then click
where it say's "Change the way users log on or off". Then just make
sure that both lines have a check mark in the box beside them. Now
since you only have one account and if you want to skip the log on
screen and boot straight to the desktop do this: Click on Start - Run
and type in "control userpasswords2" (without the quotes) and click on
ok. In the window that opens click on the line that says "Users must
use a user name and password to use this computer" and click ok. You
will then be asked to supply the user name and password of the account
you want to automatically log on with from that point on....