O.T. Slow Start-up

I have a Dell XPS 8500, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1,
with Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, Avast Professional,
Windows Defender and Windows firewall.

1TB HD
Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-33-3770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz 3.40 GHz
Ram 12.0 GB
System type : 64-bit operating system

I also have a Dell Optiplex 780 MT, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1,
with Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, Avast, Windows Defender
and Windows firewall.

750GB HD
Core 2 Duo-2.93 GHz
Ram 4.0
System type: 64-bit operating system

External hard drives:

Seagate Backup Plus 1(TB) 2.5 USB Portable HD

WD BLACK SERIES WD2003FZEX 2TB 7200
RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal
Hard Drive


Here's the problem,.. lately I've noticed the 8500 is
taking longer and longer to boot up. Normally, it's
within a few minutes but today it took 20 minutes and
I had to do a system restore via safe mode with networking
and used the troubleshooting diagnosis to connect
to the Internet.

The 780 booted and connected with no problem whatsoever.

So should I check the HD to see if that's the problem?

chkdsk /r c:

or I could just swap HD's as I have a spare

or is it something else? This just came out of the
blue because it had been working fine. When I did the
System restore it showed the last two updates were
Critical and I wonder if that had something to do with
it?

I run scans on a regular basis and they haven;t found
anything.

Thoughts/Suggestions?
Robert

On 7/8/2016 11:48 PM, Mark Twain wrote:
I have a Dell XPS 8500, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1,
with Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, Avast Professional,
Windows Defender and Windows firewall.

1TB HD
Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-33-3770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz 3.40 GHz
Ram 12.0 GB
System type : 64-bit operating system

I also have a Dell Optiplex 780 MT, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1,
with Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, Avast, Windows Defender
and Windows firewall.

750GB HD
Core 2 Duo-2.93 GHz
Ram 4.0
System type: 64-bit operating system

External hard drives:

Seagate Backup Plus 1(TB) 2.5 USB Portable HD

WD BLACK SERIES WD2003FZEX 2TB 7200
RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal
Hard Drive


Here's the problem,.. lately I've noticed the 8500 is
taking longer and longer to boot up. Normally, it's
within a few minutes but today it took 20 minutes and
I had to do a system restore via safe mode with networking
and used the troubleshooting diagnosis to connect
to the Internet.

The 780 booted and connected with no problem whatsoever.

So should I check the HD to see if that's the problem?

chkdsk /r c:

or I could just swap HD's as I have a spare

or is it something else? This just came out of the
blue because it had been working fine. When I did the
System restore it showed the last two updates were
Critical and I wonder if that had something to do with
it?

I run scans on a regular basis and they haven;t found
anything.

Thoughts/Suggestions?
Robert

First thing I'd do is boot a live linux CD. I like MacPup 5.50.
That will tell you if it's a hardware problem.

I buy a bunch of stuff at garage sales. A significant portion
of the time, the CPU heatsink is plugged with pet hair and causing
overheating that slows things to a crawl. Blow out the cat hair
and it's all good. Worth a look.

I checked for updates first and found two
optional and did those then created a restore
point and then tried a Linux CD I had and it
booted, so backed out of it and restarted the
system and everything came up fine like normal.

So I don't know what to make of it?

I'm hoping no issues tomorrow when I logon.

Thanks,
Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
I have a Dell XPS 8500, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1,
with Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, Avast Professional,
Windows Defender and Windows firewall.

1TB HD
Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-33-3770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz 3.40 GHz
Ram 12.0 GB
System type : 64-bit operating system

I also have a Dell Optiplex 780 MT, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1,
with Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, Avast, Windows Defender
and Windows firewall.

750GB HD
Core 2 Duo-2.93 GHz
Ram 4.0
System type: 64-bit operating system

External hard drives:

Seagate Backup Plus 1(TB) 2.5 USB Portable HD

WD BLACK SERIES WD2003FZEX 2TB 7200
RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal
Hard Drive


Here's the problem,.. lately I've noticed the 8500 is
taking longer and longer to boot up. Normally, it's
within a few minutes but today it took 20 minutes and
I had to do a system restore via safe mode with networking
and used the troubleshooting diagnosis to connect
to the Internet.

The 780 booted and connected with no problem whatsoever.

So should I check the HD to see if that's the problem?

chkdsk /r c:

or I could just swap HD's as I have a spare

or is it something else? This just came out of the
blue because it had been working fine. When I did the
System restore it showed the last two updates were
Critical and I wonder if that had something to do with
it?

I run scans on a regular basis and they haven;t found
anything.

Thoughts/Suggestions?
Robert

Now that you've run a Restore, you've wiped out
whatever the changes were.

You have not indicated, whether the Restore made things
normal again or not. Or, whether they're still broken.

I would have suggested going to the Windows Update
control panel, and checking the entry on the left
side that lists the history of installed updates.
To see what updates were installed.

One of the critical Win7 updates will be the full
screen banner that warns "Your time to get Windows 10
is running out", as the last day to get a free upgrade
is July 29. So they push out an update to put their
advertising on your screen. That could be one of
the KB numbers.

There are something like 8-10 updates that
I *did not* install on my Win7 laptop, the last
time I updated it. These were telemetry updates,
the Win10 Upgrade Advisor for Windows 7 and so on.

*******

The .NET updates can cause indigestion as well. But
the symptoms would be, the network interface would
be slow to start. The desktop might appear, but the
network icon might indicate it is disconnected.
Using the ngen command to check for uncompiled
assemblies sometimes helps.

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\ngen .exe executequeueditems

As for the path of that executable, ngen.exe can
exist in two or three places. A file search may
tell you the path to use on your machine.

You use that command in a "Run as Administrator"
Command Prompt window.

You use it, after Windows Update has installed .NET
updates, and later you notice that things like the
network icon aren't working, or you get a warning
the Firewall is not running. All sorts of stuff
appears broken, when .net assemblies need to be
recompiled. The above command normally isn't
needed on Windows 7, but I was forced to use this
a week or two ago, on the laptop.

While it is fun to run CHKDSK, your system
eventually recovers. You don't indicate any
"killer" errors, so it doesn't sound like the boot
stopped dead. I would certainly use CHKDSK, if
I had been power-cycling the computer in an
attempt to regain control.

If the disk appears to be slow, I would check
the SMART statistics. The HDTune health tab
can do that. Sometimes the computer comes with
OEM software that reads out the disk health for you.
I've had one instance though, where SMART did not
contain any bad news, and the C: partition was slow
because of sector re-allocation (a kind of repair).
And I replaced the drive, even though SMART claimed
the drive was "Healthy".

Paul

The computer is still 'broken' and took
another 20 minutes to boot and also had
to use the diagnostics to connect to the
Internet again because it's ot connting
on it's own.

Here are the updates:

http://i67.tinypic.com/qyfl1j.jpg

Here are the results of HDTune:

http://i64.tinypic.com/2pyweid.jpg

http://i63.tinypic.com/2h7mj6c.jpg

Thanks,
Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
The computer is still 'broken' and took
another 20 minutes to boot and also had
to use the diagnostics to connect to the
Internet again because it's ot connting
on it's own.

Here are the updates:

http://i67.tinypic.com/qyfl1j.jpg

Here are the results of HDTune:

http://i64.tinypic.com/2pyweid.jpg

http://i63.tinypic.com/2h7mj6c.jpg

Thanks,
Robert


KB2952664 - this is the GWX Win10 Upgrade Advisor install

KB3170735 - this is a weird one.
- July 2016 Update for Windows Journal

"The fourth patch, KB 3170735, has a different pedigree.
It's an optional, nonsecurity update for Windows Journal
hat "adds the capability to notify you about future
Windows Journal developments."

Windows Journal, you may recall, is a prehistoric, pen-centric,
note-taking application -- kind of a Neanderthal OneNote --
that appeared in WinXP Tablet. Except for security patches,
it has languished unchanged since then.
"

So the second one really shouldn't be doing anything.

*******

The first HDTune shows a normal 2016-grade
HDTune curve of a 210MB/sec class Seagate drive.
Just like my DT3000DM001 drive. Looks normal.

The second HDTune picture has "Reallocated sector = 0"
and there are no problems there.

So if the computer is slow, it is software related somehow.
Look in Task Manager, and see if a SVCHOST is railed.

If you cannot get Task Manager to open, then you're
in real trouble (malware, or worse, ransomware).

Paul

This is what I mean,.. how is one suppose
to know if something is Windows 10 related
if they 'hide' it under KB2952664 ?

Should I uninstall this?

Here's my Task Manager:

http://i66.tinypic.com/2udxnb8.jpg


I don't see a SVCHOST

Robert

p.s. is FF saying they it's running
on 32bit versus 64 bit? If so, how
did that happen? I also see an Image
X and have no idea what that is.

Thanks,
Robert

p.s.s

I don't know if this is related or not but
I have my screen saver disabled yet when I'm
away for a period of time the screen goes black.
It does respond when I move the mouse when I
return but the screen is usually always on.

I checked the screen saver settings and it's
still disabled so I don;t know why it's blacking
out the screen.

Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
p.s. is FF saying they it's running
on 32bit versus 64 bit? If so, how
did that happen? I also see an Image
X and have no idea what that is.

Thanks,
Robert


Firefox is available in 32 bit and 64 bit versions.
A default install might still be 32 bit. A 64 bit OS
can run 32 bit programs. The only time this is a
problem, is if Firefox consumes large amounts of
memory - it cannot use all the memory on the computer
if it is a 32 bit program.

I do not know, if Firefox will change from a 64 bit
to a 32 bit, or a 32 bit to a 64 bit, while updating.
Since there are two Program Files folders, it shouldn't
really be doing it that way.

*******

ImageX

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...(v=ws.10).aspx

ImageX could be part of installing Windows 10. I didn't
notice when allowing GWX to do its thing on my laptop,
whether ImageX was used or not.

If you have your GWX control panel installed, you'd
want to check it and see what status it shows.

http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/201...ly-remove.html

A Windows10 Free Upgrade is coming into your computer if:

1) You see an hour or more of network LED flashing, depending
on your broadband speed. It used to take close to four hours
to get the preview versions, with my slower ADSL.

A file with a name like BITSxxx stored somewhere in
SoftwareDistribution, might be where it's temporarily
storing the file. The file then gets converted to
something useful, in the folder in (2).

2) C:\$WINDOWS.~BT folder present. Checking the size
shows a significant amount of files. If it only
showed ~1MB, that's considered "empty". If it had
3.5GB or 7GB of files or so, that means it is getting
ready for an install.

It's possible ImageX is unpacking the install.wim in
the C:\$WINDOWS.~BT folder. If so, considering the
hours that have passed since your post, it could
already have copied the files into your C:\Windows.

You might well get a "surprise" when you go to
shut down the computer next, like instead of
"Shutdown", it might say "Shutdown and Install"
or something.

Let's hope the GWX Control Panel from ultimateoutsider.com
can give you a measure of control. As otherwise, I cannot
think of a good reason for a mature copy of Windows 7
to be putzing around with ImageX. You can think of
this approach, as, um, Microsoft Malware.

I run my Windows 7 with Windows Update in fully manual
mode. When I tested the Microsoft automatic install of
Win10, the Windows Update window was covered with a
banner, announcing I was eligible for the free upgrade.
So there was some feedback for me to see, and I had
an opportunity (if I wanted), to stop it. If you
run your Windows Update "full auto", then there might
be just one chance to stop the Windows 10 install.
And you'd have to be very very careful to read the
dialog box.

As long as you have a set of recent backups of C: as
a form of protection for C:\Windows and C:\Program
Files, you can undo this stuff. And since you already
did some sort of "restore" recently, it sounds like
you have some materials to work with.

But use the GWX Control Panel first, and see what the
status is.

Paul

Mark Twain wrote:
p.s.s

I don't know if this is related or not but
I have my screen saver disabled yet when I'm
away for a period of time the screen goes black.
It does respond when I move the mouse when I
return but the screen is usually always on.

I checked the screen saver settings and it's
still disabled so I don;t know why it's blacking
out the screen.

Robert

You have many failed "upgrades" to the NVidia
video driver.

But we know in a previous case, where the NVidia
package came in via the NVidia Updater sitting
on your system, it's one (unimportant) optional
part of the installer that was failing. The basic
driver and control panel portions, installed with
no problem.

The Windows Update failures are different. You've
apparently set your Windows Update to accept hardware
updates, and what you should be getting, is an
abbreviated version of the NVidia package (without
ShadowPlay). And so those failure reports in
Windows Update could be subtly different.

I'm pretty careful to:

1) Disable hardware updates from Microsoft.
2) Not install automatic update softwares from NVidia
or ATI, which would be continually updating the
driver. If I was an avid gamer with a Steam
account, maybe this is a great idea. But for
more pedestrian usages of the computer (that's me),
all these update serve no purpose.

As long as the basic video card functions are working
properly, 2D and 3D acceleration seem to work, no
helper processes are dying and spewing error dialogs
on the screen, I don't bother hunting down and
installing yet another video card update. The idea is
to seek stability... and then leave it alone.

Seeking stability means, when you get a new computer,
in the first couple days you may install two or three
different video drivers. Then you test, by playing
a simple 3D game, using Adobe Flash (with hardware
acceleration enabled), and you run your test suite.
Usually, of the two or three drivers, you find one
that seems to be working. And after that, years
pass with no updates...

I got one ATI video card, where the driver on the
CD in the box, would crash on boot. So there is
no guarantee that the first driver you try, or
even the driver that came in the box, work properly.
It was a simple matter to use another computer to
find a newer driver online, and fix it. The driver
on the CD, was the first version of SMARTGart. ATI did
figure it out eventually, and later SMARTGart
operated flawlessly. But because that feature
involved changing the bus speed of the video card,
it was pretty dangerous. And it took ATI a while
to figure out all the variables, all the machines
with quirky behavior and so on. And this is why
you test two or three drivers. As in my case,
the first driver I used (came on the CD), was
a disaster.

Paul

I posted this in an earlier separate post:

his isn't really a problem per se
but I usually check for updates on
a regular basis and there has been
one optional update (NVidia) that
never completes.

http://i66.tinypic.com/2njjd75.jpg

so in looking up the error code


https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/952032

it seems that it can only be updated
on the NVidia site? So why is it
in Windows Updates?

Just curious, as I don't really need
it as I'm not a gamer.

Thanks,
Robert

I logged the 8500 off when I shouldn't
have because now I cannot connect. I keep
trying by shutting the system down
and/or restarting but still no connection.

Regarding the 32 bit vs 64 bit does that mean that
by having FF 32 bit my 12 GB of Ram aren't being
fully used? If so, I would like to change it
to 64 bits which is what I thought I had.

It sounds as if I should uninstall Image X ?

I can't check the GWX control panel since I can't
connect.

There is a colored bar on Yahoo I think for installing
Windows 10 but I ignore it.

Can we not use Agent Ransack to search for BITSxxx?

I have my updates set to manual remember I showed
you the screenshots ? This was when you were helping
me set up everything.

So should I put in the spare HD at this point ?

Thoughts/Suggestions?
Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
I logged the 8500 off when I shouldn't
have because now I cannot connect. I keep
trying by shutting the system down
and/or restarting but still no connection.

Regarding the 32 bit vs 64 bit does that mean that
by having FF 32 bit my 12 GB of Ram aren't being
fully used? If so, I would like to change it
to 64 bits which is what I thought I had.

I wouldn't bother messing around, if it is
working right now :-) I don't know how things
like Adobe Flash work, when you change between 32 bit
Firefox and 64 bit Firefox. I don't want to screw up
your setup.


It sounds as if I should uninstall Image X ?

ImageX and DISM are built-in tools.

Seeing ImageX is a "symptom", not a "cure". We know
something evil is going on, but ImageX by itself
is not to blame.


I can't check the GWX control panel since I can't
connect.

Use the 780 to download it. Put it on a USB stick.
Carry it over to the 8500. This is why you have
two computers :-)


There is a colored bar on Yahoo I think for installing
Windows 10 but I ignore it.

The yellow bar might be a tool bar or plugin for media
content. Let's hope Win10 cannot be delivered that way...


Can we not use Agent Ransack to search for BITSxxx?

Yes. But then what ? Run the WindowsUpdate reset BAT
file and delete the download ? The install logic will
eventually get back to doing the same things.

That's why we're reaching for our GWX control panel.
That's the tool for setting a couple registry
entries. I thought you'd already set the key
registry entries to stop Windows 10, using GWX panel.


I have my updates set to manual remember I showed
you the screenshots ? This was when you were helping
me set up everything.

So should I put in the spare HD at this point ?

Thoughts/Suggestions?
Robert

The spare is for emergencies when your OS won't boot.

Your OS boots right now, so that problem is solved.

But if you think your OS is too hobbled to do any
sort of repair, then maybe the spare is a good
idea at this point.

Remember that there are many repair procedures, but
eventually, even genius repair people "nuke and pave"
a problem, because it's taking too long to fix. In your
case, I'm not sure if there is a definite problem
here, or even what is wrong. Taking a hammer to it,
and restoring from backup might provide immediate
relief, but the problem could only come back if
the same ingredients remain in place. That's why I
prefer to collect key tidbits of info, before
giving up, so I have some idea what to avoid doing
the next time.

So it's your call. "Learning experience", or
"fix with a hammer". Using a backup of the OS
to restore, would be "fix with a hammer".

Paul

[Default] On Sat, 09 Jul 2016 07:05:59 -0400, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general Paul wrote:


While it is fun to run CHKDSK, your system
eventually recovers. You don't indicate any
"killer" errors, so it doesn't sound like the boot
stopped dead. I would certainly use CHKDSK, if
I had been power-cycling the computer in an
attempt to regain control.

Gulp, I turned off my cell phone while it was doing something and when
i restarted it, it said something like "SD error, consider
reformatting".

But it's only said that about 3 times out of 12 that I've started the
phone since then, and everything in the phone seems to work, so far.

Even if it said it all the time, if this were a computer drive, I
would run chkdsk before I reformatted. Can I plug the SD card into a
USB card reader and run CHKDSK??