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Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 27th 18, 09:43 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 172
Default Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!

After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.

Now some of the same symptoms are back:

Everything appears normal up to the Login screen. I enter my password
and "Welcome" appears but nothing more happens.

Sometimes it will finish startup, but take much longer.

No error messages appear except on a restart after a lockup, the
basic Windows startup menu appears because of a failed proper
shutdown.

I'm really upset. After all I did, it appears I'm back to square one.
I have no idea what to try now.

Ads
  #2  
Old March 27th 18, 09:50 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 172
Default Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!

Just noticed the Windows personalization settings for Transparency and
color of the start Menu, Taskbar and Borders was changed. I remember
now that those changes happened the first time too.

DC
  #3  
Old March 28th 18, 12:06 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!

wrote:
Just noticed the Windows personalization settings for Transparency and
color of the start Menu, Taskbar and Borders was changed. I remember
now that those changes happened the first time too.

DC


As a random dump from a previous thread...

*******
Bitdefender (AV)
Classic Shell
desktop. Intel motherboard DZ77GA-70K.
Chkdsk doesn't report any bad sectors.
Memtest86 on a CD and ran it for 3 hours
(boot) hard disk is 1TB, System Reserved plus partitions C:, D:, and E:

The entire My documents folder was gone, including my iTunes library of over 1000 songs.

Just noticed the Windows personalization settings for Transparency and
color of the start Menu, Taskbar and Borders was changed. I remember
now that those changes happened the first time too.

D: data and DVR captures
E: Secondary copies of MR images
H: (on disk2) Primary copies of MR images
*******

Your home directory contains a registry file. It's your profile.

Some of the changes, suggest either a profile that is starting
from scratch, or you're logging in with a different profile.

The My Documents folder was gone, because the linkage between the
My Documents and the actual storage drive was broken. The files were
still present, but on some other drive.

Sometimes, video related settings can change, because a video card
driver got updated.

I can't really make a lot out of your report. As to what is
causing this. Something is causing it. But what has gotten
into the system.

The time constant could mean just about anything. It could mean
some maintenance activity kicked off whatever is happening. Or some
program that is running a service or has a Task Scheduler entry,
has started doing something on a particular day.

Your Windows Updates is apparently normally switch off (for manual
updating). Again, not that this points to a definitive root cause.

You need to look in the Event Viewer, for something significant.

Alternately, you can use this. It shows an MS panel already
in your OS.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/window...ility-monitor/

Paul
  #5  
Old March 28th 18, 09:40 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
Alternately, you can use this. It shows an MS panel already
in your OS.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/window...ility-monitor/

Paul


Interesting; like many of the commenters on that page, I had no idea
this existed.

However, rather ironically: for me, the reliability monitor (sorry,
Reliability Monitor - I forgot for a moment that This Is Microsoft We're
Dealing With Here) doesn't work! I see ten grey pillars, with no curve
or text or dates or - well anything, and the box at the bottom says
There are no reports in this view. I presume I have some service turned
off, or similar arcanery.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

To give you some indication, opinion polls suggest that people who
passionately hate or love country [music] are utterly indifferent to Marmite.
- Eddie Mair, Radio Times 11-17 February 2012
  #7  
Old March 28th 18, 02:51 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
Alternately, you can use this. It shows an MS panel already
in your OS.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/window...ility-monitor/

Paul


Interesting; like many of the commenters on that page, I had no idea
this existed.

However, rather ironically: for me, the reliability monitor (sorry,
Reliability Monitor - I forgot for a moment that This Is Microsoft We're
Dealing With Here) doesn't work! I see ten grey pillars, with no curve
or text or dates or - well anything, and the box at the bottom says
There are no reports in this view. I presume I have some service turned
off, or similar arcanery.


I think in fact, your Reliability Monitor has one entry in
it, that says the Reliability Monitor is broke :-)

But you can't see that, because the Reliability Monitor is broke.

*******

There's a few breadcrumbs (tech terms) in here.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...c-14f9a45d0f2b

The picture of a broken RAC.

https://filestore.community.support....e-75f67aefa9e1

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\PublishedData and
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\StateData

"i have tried to enable data collection for reliability monitor ,
but perhaps when i Right-clicked RAC, click View, and click
Show Hidden Tasks. ( RACAgent itask name was not visible,
even after expanding the name column)."

Perhaps it's using Scheduled Tasks for some reason.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...ollection.aspx

It's hard to imagine any activity you're been doing
on the computer, interfering with that stuff.

so the keywords seem to be RACAgent and RACTask. And some
folders that it keeps. It probably does that, so a user can
erase Event Viewer, without damaging the RAC collection.

Paul
  #8  
Old March 28th 18, 03:02 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!

dadiOH wrote:
"philo" wrote in message
news
On 03/27/2018 03:43 PM, wrote:
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.

Now some of the same symptoms are back:

Everything appears normal up to the Login screen. I enter my password
and "Welcome" appears but nothing more happens.

Sometimes it will finish startup, but take much longer.

No error messages appear except on a restart after a lockup, the
basic Windows startup menu appears because of a failed proper
shutdown.

I'm really upset. After all I did, it appears I'm back to square one.
I have no idea what to try now.



Could be a RAM problem or possibly a bad mobo.


Or power supply


The OP has already tested the RAM, which passed.

And if it is a power supply issue, why does it have
the earmarks of a "failed profile at startup" ? A power
supply failure will cause random failures at different
times of the day. Or perhaps consistently, when the
system has "power peaks". I've seen power peaks at
BIOS level (because the power management isn't very good
there), and if the PSU is pooping out, it could die
just as easily at BIOS level, before the desktop appears.

If, during shutdown, the system is actually doing "unclean"
shutdowns, that could be damaging some registry related
stuff. If you had "Automatically Reboot" set, your system
probably wouldn't shut down for you. It would reboot.
If the Automatically Reboot on a failure wasn't set, the
system could crash during shutdown, not write the registry
properly, and just... stop. Sometimes you get log entries
for things like that (Event Viewer), but not if it was a BSOD.
It might crash before having time to make a log entry.

Now, that's a lot of supposition on my part, but it's the
most likely thing to be messing up the profile (without
it being a disk issue, and the disk has been replaced).

When it comes to "BSOD Spectrum", if you look at a large
number of BSODS on your system, you'll notice a fingerprint.
For example, say the NVidia driver is really crap, then
there will be a ton of BSODS with "nvxx" in the name for
you to look at. If, on the other hand, the power supply
is bad, you'll be getting obscure errors nobody has
ever heard of. Ones you might have trouble finding in
the Aumha STOP list. At the moment, the OPs symptoms
seem to be pretty focused, but we don't have an overview
of Event Viewer to see anything else that might be
interesting. Or a view of any minidumps.

(Pictures for dramatic effect...)

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

Paul
  #9  
Old March 28th 18, 10:40 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 172
Default Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!

On Wed, 28 Mar 2018 10:02:49 -0400, Paul
wrote:

dadiOH wrote:
"philo" wrote in message
news
On 03/27/2018 03:43 PM, wrote:
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.

Now some of the same symptoms are back:

Everything appears normal up to the Login screen. I enter my password
and "Welcome" appears but nothing more happens.

Sometimes it will finish startup, but take much longer.

No error messages appear except on a restart after a lockup, the
basic Windows startup menu appears because of a failed proper
shutdown.

I'm really upset. After all I did, it appears I'm back to square one.
I have no idea what to try now.



Could be a RAM problem or possibly a bad mobo.


Or power supply


The OP has already tested the RAM, which passed.

And if it is a power supply issue, why does it have
the earmarks of a "failed profile at startup" ? A power
supply failure will cause random failures at different
times of the day. Or perhaps consistently, when the
system has "power peaks". I've seen power peaks at
BIOS level (because the power management isn't very good
there), and if the PSU is pooping out, it could die
just as easily at BIOS level, before the desktop appears.

If, during shutdown, the system is actually doing "unclean"
shutdowns, that could be damaging some registry related
stuff. If you had "Automatically Reboot" set, your system
probably wouldn't shut down for you. It would reboot.
If the Automatically Reboot on a failure wasn't set, the
system could crash during shutdown, not write the registry
properly, and just... stop. Sometimes you get log entries
for things like that (Event Viewer), but not if it was a BSOD.
It might crash before having time to make a log entry.

Now, that's a lot of supposition on my part, but it's the
most likely thing to be messing up the profile (without
it being a disk issue, and the disk has been replaced).

When it comes to "BSOD Spectrum", if you look at a large
number of BSODS on your system, you'll notice a fingerprint.
For example, say the NVidia driver is really crap, then
there will be a ton of BSODS with "nvxx" in the name for
you to look at. If, on the other hand, the power supply
is bad, you'll be getting obscure errors nobody has
ever heard of. Ones you might have trouble finding in
the Aumha STOP list. At the moment, the OPs symptoms
seem to be pretty focused, but we don't have an overview
of Event Viewer to see anything else that might be
interesting. Or a view of any minidumps.

(Pictures for dramatic effect...)

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

Paul


Thanks Paul, and to the others. I've started making notes of every
weird thing that I notice.

I printed out all of the replies and will try to absorb it. My
progress is slow but I'll keep after it and report back.

Also going to fire up another PC and update my must-have apps so I can
have reliable net access.

Thanks,

DC

Maybe I really do have Mad Cow...
  #11  
Old March 28th 18, 11:23 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Thip
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 294
Default Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!

On 3/28/2018 5:40 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 28 Mar 2018 10:02:49 -0400, Paul
wrote:

dadiOH wrote:
"philo" wrote in message
news On 03/27/2018 03:43 PM,
wrote:
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.

Now some of the same symptoms are back:

Everything appears normal up to the Login screen. I enter my password
and "Welcome" appears but nothing more happens.

Sometimes it will finish startup, but take much longer.

No error messages appear except on a restart after a lockup, the
basic Windows startup menu appears because of a failed proper
shutdown.

I'm really upset. After all I did, it appears I'm back to square one.
I have no idea what to try now.



Could be a RAM problem or possibly a bad mobo.

Or power supply


The OP has already tested the RAM, which passed.

And if it is a power supply issue, why does it have
the earmarks of a "failed profile at startup" ? A power
supply failure will cause random failures at different
times of the day. Or perhaps consistently, when the
system has "power peaks". I've seen power peaks at
BIOS level (because the power management isn't very good
there), and if the PSU is pooping out, it could die
just as easily at BIOS level, before the desktop appears.

If, during shutdown, the system is actually doing "unclean"
shutdowns, that could be damaging some registry related
stuff. If you had "Automatically Reboot" set, your system
probably wouldn't shut down for you. It would reboot.
If the Automatically Reboot on a failure wasn't set, the
system could crash during shutdown, not write the registry
properly, and just... stop. Sometimes you get log entries
for things like that (Event Viewer), but not if it was a BSOD.
It might crash before having time to make a log entry.

Now, that's a lot of supposition on my part, but it's the
most likely thing to be messing up the profile (without
it being a disk issue, and the disk has been replaced).

When it comes to "BSOD Spectrum", if you look at a large
number of BSODS on your system, you'll notice a fingerprint.
For example, say the NVidia driver is really crap, then
there will be a ton of BSODS with "nvxx" in the name for
you to look at. If, on the other hand, the power supply
is bad, you'll be getting obscure errors nobody has
ever heard of. Ones you might have trouble finding in
the Aumha STOP list. At the moment, the OPs symptoms
seem to be pretty focused, but we don't have an overview
of Event Viewer to see anything else that might be
interesting. Or a view of any minidumps.

(Pictures for dramatic effect...)

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

Paul


Thanks Paul, and to the others. I've started making notes of every
weird thing that I notice.

I printed out all of the replies and will try to absorb it. My
progress is slow but I'll keep after it and report back.

Also going to fire up another PC and update my must-have apps so I can
have reliable net access.

Thanks,

DC

Maybe I really do have Mad Cow...


I just now remembered...I had a sporadic startup issue after updating
some drivers (video?). Moron that I am, I didn't catch on right away
that my speakers make a sound on startup (kind of a "thunk"), and
startup didn't proceed until I heard the speakers. I rolled back the
drivers--problem solved.
  #12  
Old March 29th 18, 02:49 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Reliability Monitor (was: Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!)

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
Alternately, you can use this. It shows an MS panel already
in your OS.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/window...ility-monitor/

Paul

Interesting; like many of the commenters on that page, I had no idea
this existed.
However, rather ironically: for me, the reliability monitor (sorry,
Reliability Monitor - I forgot for a moment that This Is Microsoft
We're Dealing With Here) doesn't work! I see ten grey pillars, with
no curve or text or dates or - well anything, and the box at the
bottom says There are no reports in this view. I presume I have some
service turned off, or similar arcanery.


I think in fact, your Reliability Monitor has one entry in
it, that says the Reliability Monitor is broke :-)


(-:

But you can't see that, because the Reliability Monitor is broke.


(-: (-:

*******

There's a few breadcrumbs (tech terms) in here.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...7-performance/
reliability-monitor-in-action-center-does-not-show/7ce9ad4d-1607-4f14-a3
6c-14f9a45d0f2b


I tried method 3 in that - no effect. (Methods 1 and 2 are basically the
old helpdesk make-the-caller-go-away one of "reboot your computer", or a
variation thereon.) Like one of the follow-up posters there, the command
RACAgent wasn't recognised in my administrator command prompt. (Not
surprising - Everything can't find any filenames that include it.)

The picture of a broken RAC.


https://filestore.community.support....es/7107ecb1-44
a3-47e2-ba4e-75f67aefa9e1


Well, that shows a window just containing one long line of text. I do
get the window with the ten pillars - just they aren't labelled with
dates or times, there's no graph drawn across them, and no entries
below.

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\PublishedData and
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\StateData

"i have tried to enable data collection for reliability monitor ,
but perhaps when i Right-clicked RAC, click View, and click
Show Hidden Tasks. ( RACAgent itask name was not visible,
even after expanding the name column)."

Perhaps it's using Scheduled Tasks for some reason.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...s/3047.how-to-
enable-and-disable-reliability-monitor-data-collection.aspx


The task that led me to was already enabled, though showed as Ready
rather than Running. I did try changing it to Running, but no change.

It's hard to imagine any activity you're been doing
on the computer, interfering with that stuff.

so the keywords seem to be RACAgent and RACTask. And some
folders that it keeps. It probably does that, so a user can
erase Event Viewer, without damaging the RAC collection.

Paul

RACAgent not on my system; RacTask exists (as a 4,502 byte file - with
no extension - as the only file in
C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\RAC).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

And perhaps that's the scariest thing about the modern mob. In social media,
we haven't created a monster. We are the monster.
- Jonathan Holmes, RT 2015/3/28-4/3
  #13  
Old March 29th 18, 08:41 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Reliability Monitor

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
Alternately, you can use this. It shows an MS panel already
in your OS.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/window...ility-monitor/

Paul
Interesting; like many of the commenters on that page, I had no idea
this existed.
However, rather ironically: for me, the reliability monitor (sorry,
Reliability Monitor - I forgot for a moment that This Is Microsoft
We're Dealing With Here) doesn't work! I see ten grey pillars, with
no curve or text or dates or - well anything, and the box at the
bottom says There are no reports in this view. I presume I have some
service turned off, or similar arcanery.


I think in fact, your Reliability Monitor has one entry in
it, that says the Reliability Monitor is broke :-)


(-:

But you can't see that, because the Reliability Monitor is broke.


(-: (-:

*******

There's a few breadcrumbs (tech terms) in here.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...7-performance/
reliability-monitor-in-action-center-does-not-show/7ce9ad4d-1607-4f14-a3
6c-14f9a45d0f2b


I tried method 3 in that - no effect. (Methods 1 and 2 are basically the
old helpdesk make-the-caller-go-away one of "reboot your computer", or a
variation thereon.) Like one of the follow-up posters there, the command
RACAgent wasn't recognised in my administrator command prompt. (Not
surprising - Everything can't find any filenames that include it.)

The picture of a broken RAC.


https://filestore.community.support....es/7107ecb1-44
a3-47e2-ba4e-75f67aefa9e1


Well, that shows a window just containing one long line of text. I do
get the window with the ten pillars - just they aren't labelled with
dates or times, there's no graph drawn across them, and no entries below.

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\PublishedData and
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\StateData

"i have tried to enable data collection for reliability monitor ,
but perhaps when i Right-clicked RAC, click View, and click
Show Hidden Tasks. ( RACAgent itask name was not visible,
even after expanding the name column)."

Perhaps it's using Scheduled Tasks for some reason.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...s/3047.how-to-
enable-and-disable-reliability-monitor-data-collection.aspx


The task that led me to was already enabled, though showed as Ready
rather than Running. I did try changing it to Running, but no change.

It's hard to imagine any activity you're been doing
on the computer, interfering with that stuff.

so the keywords seem to be RACAgent and RACTask. And some
folders that it keeps. It probably does that, so a user can
erase Event Viewer, without damaging the RAC collection.

Paul

RACAgent not on my system; RacTask exists (as a 4,502 byte file - with
no extension - as the only file in
C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\RAC).


This shows the size and file types of the two data folders it uses.
It keeps information in SQL Compact databases (doesn't use Microsoft
ESE Jet Blue).

https://s17.postimg.org/m1ravgwvz/RAC_Data_Folders.gif

And I see evidence here, that this thing ties into CEIP and Telemetry.
So if a program fails, it's probably reported to the software developer.
And RAC is keeping statistics.

The machine I was looking at was "polluted" by a Visual Studio
installation, so I have to be careful to not jump to too many
conclusions. But the stuff looks "complicated at the edges".

There is a RAC Engine DLL that does some math or something, but
I can't figure out much else.

Paul
  #14  
Old March 29th 18, 10:06 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 172
Default Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!

On Wed, 28 Mar 2018 10:02:49 -0400, Paul
wrote:

dadiOH wrote:
"philo" wrote in message
news
On 03/27/2018 03:43 PM, wrote:
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.

Now some of the same symptoms are back:

Everything appears normal up to the Login screen. I enter my password
and "Welcome" appears but nothing more happens.

Sometimes it will finish startup, but take much longer.

No error messages appear except on a restart after a lockup, the
basic Windows startup menu appears because of a failed proper
shutdown.

I'm really upset. After all I did, it appears I'm back to square one.
I have no idea what to try now.



Could be a RAM problem or possibly a bad mobo.


Or power supply


The OP has already tested the RAM, which passed.

And if it is a power supply issue, why does it have
the earmarks of a "failed profile at startup" ? A power
supply failure will cause random failures at different
times of the day. Or perhaps consistently, when the
system has "power peaks". I've seen power peaks at
BIOS level (because the power management isn't very good
there), and if the PSU is pooping out, it could die
just as easily at BIOS level, before the desktop appears.

If, during shutdown, the system is actually doing "unclean"
shutdowns, that could be damaging some registry related
stuff. If you had "Automatically Reboot" set, your system
probably wouldn't shut down for you. It would reboot.
If the Automatically Reboot on a failure wasn't set, the
system could crash during shutdown, not write the registry
properly, and just... stop. Sometimes you get log entries
for things like that (Event Viewer), but not if it was a BSOD.
It might crash before having time to make a log entry.

Now, that's a lot of supposition on my part, but it's the
most likely thing to be messing up the profile (without
it being a disk issue, and the disk has been replaced).

When it comes to "BSOD Spectrum", if you look at a large
number of BSODS on your system, you'll notice a fingerprint.
For example, say the NVidia driver is really crap, then
there will be a ton of BSODS with "nvxx" in the name for
you to look at. If, on the other hand, the power supply
is bad, you'll be getting obscure errors nobody has
ever heard of. Ones you might have trouble finding in
the Aumha STOP list. At the moment, the OPs symptoms
seem to be pretty focused, but we don't have an overview
of Event Viewer to see anything else that might be
interesting. Or a view of any minidumps.

(Pictures for dramatic effect...)

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

Paul


You made me think about a corrupted User Profile.

I went he
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...d-user-profile

Followed the steps and created a new user as administrator, like my
original user account.

I thought if a new account wasn't corrupted, it would start properly.
Today I ran some tests and was disappointed.

Didn't matter which user I tried logging on as. The symptoms of not
getting beyond the "Welcome" screen and the disk activity light being
mostly steady for a few minutes occurred.

Sometimes it would finish starting and seem to work ok. But even
then, a normal automated Log off, Shutdown and Restart, might or might
not go smoothly.

Tomorrow I'll read the pages you linked to see if I can
understand/learn anything else to try.

DC

 




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