This Months tips are focused on what is happening when your computer hangs at the Windows Logo screen. That is after it goes through all the initial hardware checks, Comes up to Windows and then just sits there. Again, all steps here are only suggestions and should be pursued at your own risk.
Most likely issue here is that a driver or newly installed process/program is conflicting with an existing program. This issue also happens when a newly installed Windows update conflicts with the existing configuration.
1) To correct there are a few different options. Use F8 (depending on the system) to get into the advanced boot menu – then choose start in “last Known Good Configuration”. If that clears the issue, work with the client to determine what recent changes were made to the system and trouble shoot how to make the changes without causing the same issue.
The Next two Steps can be reversed depending on your level of comfort in the System Configuration Utility and your comfort interpreting System Logs. I am very comfortable with both and would proceed in this order.
2) Start in Safe Mode with Networking. While in Safe Mode choose Start>Run>MsConfig. This will bring up the System Configuration Utility. Leave that to the side for the moment, next right click on the My Computer icon and choose Manage. At the Computer Management Screen;
- Choose Event Viewer Check each of the Logs looking for yellow question marks or red exclamation points.
- Double click on the likely candidates see if there is any useful information listed. Use Google to track down anything cryptic
- If you get lucky, a single program or service is repeated identified – if so, choose the System Configuration Box and disable it from startup and it’s service.
- If there is nothing sending errors, go back to the Configuration Utility and do a general cleanup
- First choose Start Up tab, look for any Blank Keys, Program updating Bots, suspiciously named/located programs etc…
- Next choose the Services Tab (IMPORTANT: HIDE ALL MICROSOFT SERVICES), after you’ve hidden the Microsoft services look for the same in this section
- Choose Apply and close – don’t restart yet
- Finally, choose the add/remove programs option and sort by date and show updates. Make a note of the most recent.
- Reboot and see if the issue is resolved.
If it is resolved, again, pinpoint the cause of the issue and attempt to uninstall then reinstall the problem program/service/driver.
3) If that doesn’t work, the next step would be to use System Restore from Safe Mode. Prior to using the System Restore make sure you know about any important work the customer has done between the date of the restore point and the current date. If there is nothing significant, move forward. (And again, attempt to pinpoint the cause of the hang-ups).
If there has been, work with the customer to pull off all pertinent data and program files to a thumb-drive. Use Google Search to identify pertinent files if needed.
After the files are retrieved, continue with the System Restore.
If none of that works, deeper trouble shooting is required.
Thanks for taking the time to visit my site
Jeremy Davis
720-421-4384
