Lazy startup, black screen after log on or lazy desktop icons loading

Kauser · Feb 3, 2014

Hi all, I’d like your help with a problem. Every morning I turn my laptop on, log on to our family account on the blue screen, then it takes 2 minutes to load. Here is the problem: once the loading is over after logging on, sometimes it freezes on a black screen with a moveable cursor. Otherwise my desktop does appear with the wallpaper but it all freezes during the loading of the bottom right-hand side icons with a moveable cursor. I can wait for a maximum of 15 minutes, then my patience runs out. In either case I’m able to press Ctrl + Alt + Del which leads to a typical blue Vista screen with five options + Cancel. When I select Start Task Manager on that screen, it all goes black and the Task Manager never appears. In either situation, the only choice I have is to retype Ctrl + Alt + Del to bring up the blue screen and click the red power logo in the lower right-hand side and select Restart. If that gives me nothing after 15 minutes, I press and hold the power button for 5 seconds and it shuts down.

Here is the interesting part, when I repeat the process and log on the second or third time, then finally I’m able to have a fully working computer and I can carry on but these days the service is slow. Please don’t tell me that my computer finally works and to learn to live with that. The reason I am asking for help is that in case in the future the problem gets worse, and Microsoft and all Vista forums stop supporting Vista owners, I’ll be left helpless. So I wanna avoid that.

It has been like this since December or November of 2013. Here are three events that happened during this time that might help explain that problem (all three events happened within a two week period, I forgot the order):

1) I tried to speed up my pc by following these two videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPklALA0SMk , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWF8FhwzjZk

2) I installed Service Packs 1 and 2 (including almost 200 Windows Updates that followed)

3) I installed Avast! Premium (without paying) by following this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOYGG9BquLk

So far I have run the “sfc /scannow” , full system scan with Avast! and full system scan with Malwarebytes, but no luck. I don’t even know the name of this problem to be able to do any research about it or find a solution online. Someone wrote that you clean the Processes in the Windows Task Manager, but I don’t know which Process is actually a virus, so can anyone bring me the full list of viruses that hide in the Task Manager? I’ll do the rest from there. Or better yet, can someone find me the appropriate step by step tutorial on YouTube? I’ll just follow that solution. I don’t know what to do, I feel so hopeless because I’m a complete computer noob. Any help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance.

spacecon · Feb 3, 2014

I suggest you uninstall the cracked Avast. Don't know if that is part of the problem, but it might be. There is enough freeware that I don't understand why anyone would want to do that. And if you can undo the speed up the pc thing, that is probably no good either, I don't know. However, some things to try,

If you boot up in safe mode, does this problem go away? If so, then you can disable startup services other than MS services and enable one at a time to see what is causing the problem. So check to see if the problem is not there when you boot in safe mode.

Kauser · Feb 7, 2014

Hi spacecon. I didn't manually uninstall the cracked Avast! Premium like you suggested, however when I scanned with Malwarebytes, the crack got deleted. So now I'm left with Avast! Premium without the crack (the free membership is good until 2050 lol), which I'm confident will do more good than bad to my system.

Secondly, I'd love to "undo the speed up the pc thing" like you said. In fact, if you click on the first video link above, you'll learn that "the video has been removed as a violation of YouTube's policy against spam, scams and commercially deceptive content". That suggests to me that this tutorial ****ed up my registry editor and because the video is never coming back to life, I'm afraid my registry will always remain that way. Plus I don't know how to undo the second video in the link above either (complete computer noob). Can you help me with that?

And finally, I've tried many times to "boot up in safe mode" by pressing F8 at the start, but only once I was successful. After selecting Safe Mode it took a while during the loading of files on the black screen, but after that the logging on was pretty quick. In the clock area icons, there were only three icons present: the internet connection logo and the volume were marked with an X meaning I was unable to access the internet or to play with the volume. So "the problem (about lazy desktop icons loading) is not there when I boot in safe mode", but the Safe Mode has its own problems mentioned above. I read somewhere that this might be a driver related issue. Could this be true? If so then what is it that I gotta do? Does anyone have other ideas? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

spacecon · Feb 7, 2014

It sounds like it is starting OK in safe mode. Maybe you just didn't keep hitting the key over and over? But it sounds like it booted much faster in safe mode. So troubleshoot by following this tutorial. The procedure is basically the same in Vista as in Windows7. As for whether it could be a driver, yes it might be. Have you looked in Control Panel, Device manager to see if there are any problems evident (marked with a yellow exclamation point)? There should be plenty of examples if you do a search, but if you need help with that, there are people that can help with that. Try the clean boot troubleshooting and also look in Device manager and let us know the results.

spacecon · Feb 8, 2014

Kauser, thinking on this some more, I believe that rather than perform the troubleshooting steps I sent previously, it would be better for you to just do a system restore to a point before you made the undesired modifications. See this tutorial. Hopefully then the problems are gone. If not, you can do the troubleshooting after trying system restore instead.

townsbg · Feb 13, 2014

You might have to restore the backed up registry. Manually Restore the Registry From its Backup in Windows (Windows 7 / Vista) - Sysnative Forums

wither 3 · Feb 14, 2014

It all sounds to me like Vista needs to be repaired or reinstalled. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what the blue screens on log on are and what the right hand icons are.

Kauser · Feb 20, 2014

To Wither 3: It’s not “blue screens”, it’s “screen” (singular, post #1, para.#1) and it’s not “right-hand icons”, it’s “bottom right-hand side icons” (post#1, para.#1). Watch this video Windows Vista on the Compaq Presario A900 - YouTube and pause at 34:30 to understand what I mean by “blue screen on log on” (and the loading on the blue welcome screen that follows) and pause at 44:16 to understand what I mean by “bottom right-hand side icons”. Man! I spent hours on YouTube to find the appropriate video that explains both. Now that “for the life of you”, you have figured out what I mean by these terms, go back and read my previous posts and help me!

To spacecon: I have no problem doing the system restore like you suggest. I remember making a system restore point before going ahead with the three events described in the post #1, but today when I followed your system restore tutorial I was shocked to learn that my system restore, for some reason I don’t understand, only goes as far back as ten days ago.

I decided to perform a clean startup by following your link. In the “warning” box it said: you must be logged on as an administrator to do the steps in this tutorial. We don’t have an administrator account; it’s a family laptop, thus one account for all, so I’m doing it without the administrator account (hope I don’t screw up). In the “services” tab, I selected “disable all” (including my new Avast! Premier and my expired McAfee antiviruses) and restarted the computer. Both the shut down and startup took a bit less time than usual. I then typed “msconfig” and I saw that in the “services” tab, three “services” were already checked even though I had disabled them: 1) avast! Antivirus, 2) avast! Firewall, and 3) McAfee Real-time Scanner. I then clicked the “startup” tab where all the “items” were already unchecked except one: avast! Antivirus. I didn’t fully understand step 5: “uncheck half of the checked boxes, then check half of the unchecked boxes, then uncheck half of the checked boxes...” it was too complicated. So to determine whether the “services” were causing any problem, I disabled all “services” and “items” and noticed the shut down and startup time. Then I enabled all the “services” only (kept the “items” unchecked) and noticed the shut down and startup time. It was almost identical; in other words whether I check or uncheck the “services”, it doesn’t make any difference. As of now all my “services” are enabled (even though five of them have their status as “stopped”) and all my “items” are disabled (except one). The problem about too much time spent on the blue shut down and welcome screens is sort of “dealt with” but the problem about “freezing on a black screen with a moveable cursor” still happens sometimes. So this is where I need your help.

I’m very interested in knowing if I have a driver (don’t even know what it means) related problem. In fact if I click the word “driver” in post #4, it leads to downloading DriverDetective. What is it? Is it safe or is it a virus? It doesn’t look like it comes from a safe site. Have you yourself installed it? Did you want me to install it? If so then please specify after ensuring that it is not a virus. I checked my Device Manager but found no icon with a yellow exclamation point. I only clicked the + and – button to expand and collapse and not on any logo. Is there any other way to determine if I have damaged drivers?

To townsbg: The link that you have provided is for IT professionals and is out of my comprehension, I’m just a low level computer noob. I fear that I may damage my computer even more because it is a delicate operation (one small error can blow it all up) and I have vowed to never touch my Registry Editor ever again after following that now deleted video in post#1 that I remember made me play with the Registry Editor a little bit which I now regret. I can’t even get past step #1(system recovery options): I don’t have an administrator account, it’s a family laptop therefore one account for all. I don’t know what’s Windows Recovery Environment or Windows Installation Media and I don’t have the Vista Installation DVD. Step#7 says if there are any size 0 files, do not continue: don’t know what a size 0 file looks like. But still thank you many times for wanting to help me. If the problem about “freezing on black screen with a moveable cursor” gets worse in the future, I’ll take it to a repair shop and show him your link and he’ll take it from there. If you can think of any easy solution, then keep it coming. Thanks in advance.

spacecon · Feb 20, 2014

When you looked for system restore points, did you click on the box at the bottom left of the window that says "show more restore points"? That will give you more restore points. However, the maximum number of restore points is determined by how much storage space you a lot for system restore. Do not change that right now as it won't bring back lost restore points. But DO make sure you checked the box to show additional restore points to see if you have ones that go further back. The sooner you do this the better, as every time a restore point is created, it will delete the older ones once the amount of allotted space is used up.

As for the Driver Detective, I noticed that too. Apparently this site must get revenue from that. If you are not logged in, everywhere the word "driver" is found, it brings up a link to that. However, if you log in to the forums, that won't happen.

Let us know if you have the additional restore points you need. That would be the best and easiest thing.

Kauser · Mar 14, 2014

Hi Spacecon, so I went to do a system restore by following the link in post#5. In the screenshot 1/5 you would notice that the first of two options is “undo system restore: select this option to undo the System Restore done at the time listed if you think it didn’t fix problems or caused more problems.” The second option is obviously “choose a different restore point”. In my System Restore window, my first of two options is “recommended restore: select this option to undo the most recent update, driver, or software installation if you think it is causing problems”. Any idea why there is this difference? So I clicked “choose a different restore point” and clicked Next. In the screenshot 2/5 in my System Restore, I was shocked to learn that I have only four restore points despite checking “show restore points older than five days. The oldest one is seven days old. In all restore points, the description is “Install: Windows Update”.

As for the Driver Detective, you didn’t clearly specify to download and install it. So I’m not going ahead with that link. You also wrote “if you’re not logged in, everywhere the word ‘driver’ is found, it brings up a link to that. However if you log in to the forums, that won’t happen” (post#9, para.#2). This is not true. I always sign in to this forum (which is absolutely necessary in order to post, as guests/non members are not allowed to post). In fact I’m logged in right now as I type and I can see that the words ‘driver’ (post#3, para.#3 and post#4 and post#8, para.#4) are clickable links.

Remember in post#1, I described two situations: after logging on sometimes it freezes on a black screen with a moveable cursor and sometimes my desktop appears with the wallpaper but it freezes during the loading of clock area icons with a moveable cursor, and that I have to press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart my computer. Well there is a third situation that I forgot to mention: after logging on, by choosing my account, it freezes on the blue welcome screen with the loading icon (the blue rotating circle) next to the word Welcome. This time I have absolutely no other option but press and hold the power button for 5 seconds to shut it down and start new as pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del gives me nothing on that screen.

You may also remember in post #8, para.#3 I wrote that the problem about too much time spent on the blue shut down and welcome screens is sort of “dealt with”. Please ignore it because it is not true anymore. When I was doing the experiment about enabling and disabling the “services” and “startup items” and checking the startup and shut down time, I was shutting down within two minutes of starting up. That’s why it was taking almost no time, but these days shutting down after a long day of browsing, it takes a minute and half to shut down. So that problem still remains.

Author townsbg suggested that I should “restore the backed up registry”. Author wither 3 suggested that my “Vista needs to be repaired or reinstalled”. If the problem is my registry then how about I restore my computer to factory settings? Wouldn’t that give me a brand new, untouched registry with default settings? Why hasn’t anyone thought of that? I have been looking for online tutorials about my problems and found some interested videos I want your advice about before going ahead with them (if you suggest, that is):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AV6xd63BFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G28CVUItVY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjihg9Chl28

Also check out this video, it’s not a tutorial but it will give you some idea about my problem because the content in this video is similar to my problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvuOsaBmnEE

spacecon · Mar 14, 2014

Kauser said:
As for the Driver Detective, you didn’t clearly specify to download and install it. So I’m not going ahead with that link. You also wrote “if you’re not logged in, everywhere the word ‘driver’ is found, it brings up a link to that. However if you log in to the forums, that won’t happen” (post#9, para.#2). This is not true. I always sign in to this forum (which is absolutely necessary in order to post, as guests/non members are not allowed to post). In fact I’m logged in right now as I type and I can see that the words ‘driver’ (post#3, para.#3 and post#4 and post#8, para.#4) are clickable links.

Hi Kauser, long time no hear. I am still looking over what you sent, but a few quick responses to it:
1. Interesting that you get the link to Driver Detective when signed in. Are you sure? I did NOT give those links. I notice that when I am not signed in that the links are there, but they are not when I am signed in. Be sure you are signed in by going to the very top of the page. If you are not signed in, there will be a tab that says "log in". If you are signed in, there will be a tab that says "log out".
2. I am surprised you are not seeing more restore points, so long as you have hard drive space. Something must have deleted them, as with Vista, the default storage space is a good percentage of your hard drive available. When the space is used up, the oldest restore points are deleted to make room for new ones that are created, but this only happens if your allotted space is used up. Make sure you scrolled all the way to the bottom of the list to see the oldest restore points. If they aren't there, then obviously you can't restore.
3. The reason no one already suggested doing a factory re-install is that usually is a somewhat of a pain. You will need to reinstall any applications you added after you bought it, which also means you need to make sure you have all your installation disks for all software as well as product license keys. If you have email and other files stored that you don't want to lose you have to back them up also. If you don't have a problem returning the computer to the store bought state, then by all means, that is a relatively easy fix. However, before you try that, try this very easy potential fix...
4. I believe you said that you only have one account on the computer, so create a new user account and see if it works without any problems. Do this: Go to the start menu and click on the orb (at the bottom left), type in " user accounts" into the search box, then it will show the results up above, which should show an item called "user accounts". Click on that and it will open a window that says "make changes to your user account". One of the options under that is "manage another account". Click on that, and then it will bring up another window (you may have to click OK to authorize user account control along the way). One of the options down below will be "create a new account". Click on that, and it will bring up a window. Type the new account name where indicated, andselect the account type as "administrator" instead of "standard user". Then click "create account". You can add a password if desired, but at this point you may not want to. Then reboot your computer and log in with the new account and see if everything work OK. If so, then you are good to go. You can then move all your data over to the new account and eventually delete the old one. So try this first and see if everything works. If not, then maybe a factory re-install is the answer, but you will have to back up any data and expect to reinstall all software that wasn't factory installed. Let us know how it goes and good luck!

wither 3 · Mar 14, 2014

In reading back through this thread, I wanted to mention that the reason you get no internet when you go to Safe Mode is because you have to select Safe Mode with Networking. Are you able to select that?

I looked at the parts of the video you mentioned. I can tell you that whenever my workstation gets anywhere near a battery charge of 10% or less, whether it's charging or not, it unceremoneously shuts down. It has Win 7. I'm wondering if the problem is with your charger. You might try booting without the battery installed and the charger connected. If that doesn't work, I'd suspect the charger.

Kauser · May 8, 2014

Hi Spacecon, in your 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] paragraph you talk about ‘factory re-install’, however I was asking about ‘resetting a pc to factory settings’ in order to have a new default registry (post#10, para.#5). I think you misunderstood, so I’ve looked up some YouTube videos to explain what I meant. These videos are about factory resetting windows vista computers in general:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1vDZrWmHg0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1vDZrWmHg0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZwfJrUoPZ8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZwfJrUoPZ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpkO1XnWyghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpkO1XnWyg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIwkKeWI12shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIwkKeWI12s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0nQE7Fm3NEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0nQE7Fm3NE

The following videos are about factory resetting Toshiba Satellite computers (which is what I have), again no installation disks and no product license keys etc. Both of these videos have Windows 7 as operating system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MGqBguHg9shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MGqBguHg9s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Btu5Q-EGAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Btu5Q-EGA

So I’ll carry over my question from my previous post: if I reset my computer to factory settings by the above methods, would that give me a brand new, untouched registry with default settings? That’s the reason why I’m sharing these videos with you. Secondly, I’m interested in the idea of creating a new user account. But because it’s a family laptop and my inexperience with computers, I fear that I may end up doing something irreversible when creating a new user account, for example: selecting the account type as ‘administrator’ or deleting the older account.

But more importantly, my laptop thankfully isn’t causing me as much problems as it did during the winter when it used to freeze almost every morning. These days it freezes once every six or seven days. I don’t know what changed honestly, apart from the weather. That’s the reason why it took me this long to reply to you (because I didn’t have the motivation while the laptop was working fine). In the meantime, I’ll be doing some research about ‘creating a new user account’ in case the problem comes back. Once I’ve enough knowledge about this matter, I’ll definitely go ahead with it. So thanks a lot for the tip.

Hi Wither 3, remember in post#3 I went in Safe Mode and complained that in the clock area icons all three logos (the McAfee, internet connection logo, the volume) were marked with a red X, meaning I was unable to access the internet or to play with the volume. Well I went in Safe Mode with Networking and I saw that the internet connection logo wasn’t marked with a red X, but when I opened Google Chrome, after a long loading, I was given a blank white page. I clicked the Refresh and Home tabs but no luck. So it means that I’ve no internet connection in either Safe Mode. As for the battery and the charger, our battery had a maximum charge of 30 minutes. After that we had to plug in the adapter to recharge the battery and repeat the cycle, which was a bit annoying. So about three years ago we decided to get rid of the battery and use the AC adapter to run our laptop from that point on. So the battery and the charger are not to blame.

PS: Sorry if I took too long to reply or made you impatient. Again it’s because my laptop’s problems aren’t as frequent as they were in the past for some reason. I don’t know what will happen in the future, or in the next winter, so let’s NOT mark this thread as solved just yet.

spacecon · May 8, 2014

Kauser:
1. factory re-install is the same as resetting to factory settings. When you do this, the computer will be exactly as it was when you bought it before you turned it on. Therefore, you will lose everything on the hard drive that you have added or changed. If that is OK, then this is a very easy fix. Each mfr has a procedure, which is often different for different computer models. It usually involves hitting a sequence of keys when you reboot to get into the mode where you can re-install, reset to factory.
2. Adding a new user account is an extremely easy process and takes very little time. You should try this even before the factory reinstall. A factory re-install though not too difficult takes much longer and there are more things to go wrong. I suggest you make the new user account an administrator account (this is an option when creating). That will allow you the option of easily moving data from your old screwed up account to the new account. Also, if you create an account you don't want, it is very easy to just delete the account. It takes almost no time at all. So try that first, add a new user account and see if your computer works with that account perfectly. If it does, just move any data from the old messed up account to the new account and make that your main account. Then after some time when you are sure you don't need anything from the old account, you can safely remove it very easily so all you will have left is the new account. Once you find out how easy that is, you may want to set up separate accounts for different family members. If creating this new account does not fix your problems, then do the factory re-install after saving any data you want to an external usb stick or whatever.
3. About the battery: I don't know what the electric company is like there, but keep in mind that with no battery that if you have an electrical glitch even for a small time, it can cause data corruption. Here in FL, I would not want to run my laptop without a battery. I was surprised how cheap I was able to find one on either ebay or Amazon, only like $14 or so for mine. So you might want to consider that. Plus it is a laptop, meant to be portable. With no battery, it isn't.
4. About the safe mode: Sounds like your networking was working, but probably not your home page. Just type in www.google.com into the address bar and it should work. But try first the new account. If that works you will be amazed how easy it is and wishing you had done it months ago.

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