Win 7 Startup Problems - Again!

[D***@MadCow.net]

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.

[D***@MadCow.net]

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

[Paul]

Post by D***@MadCow.net
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/windows-7-reliability-monitor/

Paul

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <p9eip2$8ap$***@dont-email.me>, Paul <***@needed.invalid>
writes:
[]

Post by Paul
Alternately, you can use this. It shows an MS panel already
in your OS.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-7-reliability-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.

[Paul]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
[]

Post by Paul
Alternately, you can use this. It shows an MS panel already
in your OS.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-7-reliability-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/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/reliability-monitor-in-action-center-does-not-show/7ce9ad4d-1607-4f14-a36c-14f9a45d0f2b

The picture of a broken RAC.

https://filestore.community.support.microsoft.com/api/images/7107ecb1-44a3-47e2-ba4e-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/wiki/contents/articles/3047.how-to-enable-and-disable-reliability-monitor-data-collection.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

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Post by Paul

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
[]

Post by Paul
Alternately, you can use this. It shows an MS panel already
in your OS.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-7-reliability-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/windows/forum/windows_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.)

Post by Paul
The picture of a broken RAC.
https://filestore.community.support.microsoft.com/api/images/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.

Post by Paul
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/wiki/contents/articles/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.

Post by Paul
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).

[Paul]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)

Post by Paul

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
[]

Post by Paul
Alternately, you can use this. It shows an MS panel already
in your OS.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-7-reliability-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/windows/forum/windows_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.)

Post by Paul
The picture of a broken RAC.
https://filestore.community.support.microsoft.com/api/images/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.

Post by Paul
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/wiki/contents/articles/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.

Post by Paul
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).

Loading Image...

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

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

[]

Post by Paul

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)

Post by Paul
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

My C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\PublishedData contains one file,
RacWmiDatabase.sdf, size 148 KB; my
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\StateData contains two, RacDatabase.sdf 543
KB and RacMetaData.dat 1 KB, actually 8 bytes (AB BF FA 00 AD DB BA 00).
Still getting just the grey pillars with no overgraph.

Post by Paul
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

If _you_ can't, I have _no_ chance (-:!

[Paul]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
[]

Post by Paul

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)

Post by Paul
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

My C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\PublishedData contains one file,
RacWmiDatabase.sdf, size 148 KB; my
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\RAC\StateData contains two, RacDatabase.sdf 543
KB and RacMetaData.dat 1 KB, actually 8 bytes (AB BF FA 00 AD DB BA 00).
Still getting just the grey pillars with no overgraph.

Post by Paul
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

If _you_ can't, I have _no_ chance (-:!

Well, we're working at this a bit at a time, and hoping
it's something simple, right ?

What I notice in your description, is you're missing the two WMI
files. My folder had four files. Your folder has two files.
Both your WMI are missing. Does this imply a WMI thing is broken ?

And that gives us another keyword to work with :-)

For example, in this short thread, it almost suggests a "policy"
might be available to switch WMI off. We'll ignore this for
the moment, as this is likely a red herring.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3cdacf69-d762-4761-acef-e991fdc22033/automated-way-to-enable-reliability-monitor?forum=winservergen

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Reliability Analysis\WMI
WMIEnable

*******

In this article, the only thing I'm initially interested in, is the
first line.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/reliability-monitor-view-all-problem-reports-empty/f989f4df-cbf1-4f0b-96c1-b52971bda91e

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Reliability Analysis\WMI" /v WMIEnable /T REG_DWORD /D 1 /F

The script likely came from here, and you can change the extension
on the .bat file to .txt and look at this in Notepad if you want.
*Don't* be in a rush to run this. This cleans out the entire
Event Viewer, as well as the two folders used by RAC. Sure it
works, but now you'll have to wait for a day to get enough
data to test the Reliability Monitor. I prefer to turn on WMI
as a first step.

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/downloads/RRM.zip

Here is a picture of me verifying my key is correct in Windows 7.
Make sure yours looks like this.

Loading Image...

Because your WMI is missing, that's my guess as to why.

While it could be GPEDIT related, like the "policy" key above
we're ignoring, how exactly would that have happened ? I'm more
willing to buy a story, where WMI doesn't start the first time
on its own, and something "bootstraps" it, and turns on that
registry key. But you can have a look and see what is what.

Paul

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <p9k836$s51$***@dont-email.me>, Paul <***@needed.invalid>
writes:
[]

Post by Paul
Well, we're working at this a bit at a time, and hoping
it's something simple, right ?
What I notice in your description, is you're missing the two WMI
files. My folder had four files. Your folder has two files.
Both your WMI are missing. Does this imply a WMI thing is broken ?

Your guess is better than mine!

Post by Paul
And that gives us another keyword to work with :-)
For example, in this short thread, it almost suggests a "policy"
might be available to switch WMI off. We'll ignore this for
the moment, as this is likely a red herring.
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3cdacf69-d762-4761-ace
f-e991fdc22033/automated-way-to-enable-reliability-monitor?forum=winserv
ergen
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Reliability Analysis\WMI
WMIEnable

OK, I'll ignore it - except I checked out of curiosity, and: under
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows, I don't _have_ a Reliability
Analysis "folder".

Post by Paul
*******
In this article, the only thing I'm initially interested in, is the
first line.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance
/reliability-monitor-view-all-problem-reports-empty/f989f4df-cbf1-4f0b-9
6c1-b52971bda91e
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Reliability Analysis\WMI" /v WMIEnable /T REG_DWORD /D 1 /F
The script likely came from here, and you can change the extension
on the .bat file to .txt and look at this in Notepad if you want.
*Don't* be in a rush to run this. This cleans out the entire
Event Viewer, as well as the two folders used by RAC. Sure it
works, but now you'll have to wait for a day to get enough
data to test the Reliability Monitor. I prefer to turn on WMI
as a first step.

Indeed. When I run the Reliability Monitor, although I have just the
naked grey pillars, if I click View all problem reports at the bottom of
the window, I _do_ have entries - the latest being 2018-3-24.

Post by Paul
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/downloads/RRM.zip
Here is a picture of me verifying my key is correct in Windows 7.
Make sure yours looks like this.
https://s17.postimg.org/akoq930f3/Reliability_Monitor_Win7_WMI_key.gif
Because your WMI is missing, that's my guess as to why.

No, I have that key there, with the same value.

Post by Paul
While it could be GPEDIT related, like the "policy" key above
we're ignoring, how exactly would that have happened ? I'm more
willing to buy a story, where WMI doesn't start the first time
on its own, and something "bootstraps" it, and turns on that
registry key. But you can have a look and see what is what.
Paul

I await my next instructions (provided they're simple) with interest!
But you don't have to do this for me; until a couple of days ago I had
no idea this reliability monitor existed, so not having it hasn't hurt!

[Paul]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
[]

Post by Paul
Well, we're working at this a bit at a time, and hoping
it's something simple, right ?
What I notice in your description, is you're missing the two WMI
files. My folder had four files. Your folder has two files.
Both your WMI are missing. Does this imply a WMI thing is broken ?

Your guess is better than mine!

Post by Paul
And that gives us another keyword to work with :-)
For example, in this short thread, it almost suggests a "policy"
might be available to switch WMI off. We'll ignore this for
the moment, as this is likely a red herring.
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3cdacf69-d762-4761-ace
f-e991fdc22033/automated-way-to-enable-reliability-monitor?forum=winserv
ergen
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Reliability Analysis\WMI
WMIEnable

OK, I'll ignore it - except I checked out of curiosity, and: under
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows, I don't _have_ a Reliability
Analysis "folder".

Post by Paul
*******
In this article, the only thing I'm initially interested in, is the
first line.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance
/reliability-monitor-view-all-problem-reports-empty/f989f4df-cbf1-4f0b-9
6c1-b52971bda91e
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Reliability Analysis\WMI" /v
WMIEnable /T REG_DWORD /D 1 /F
The script likely came from here, and you can change the extension
on the .bat file to .txt and look at this in Notepad if you want.
*Don't* be in a rush to run this. This cleans out the entire
Event Viewer, as well as the two folders used by RAC. Sure it
works, but now you'll have to wait for a day to get enough
data to test the Reliability Monitor. I prefer to turn on WMI
as a first step.

Indeed. When I run the Reliability Monitor, although I have just the
naked grey pillars, if I click View all problem reports at the bottom of
the window, I _do_ have entries - the latest being 2018-3-24.

Post by Paul
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/downloads/RRM.zip
Here is a picture of me verifying my key is correct in Windows 7.
Make sure yours looks like this.
https://s17.postimg.org/akoq930f3/Reliability_Monitor_Win7_WMI_key.gif
Because your WMI is missing, that's my guess as to why.

No, I have that key there, with the same value.

Post by Paul
While it could be GPEDIT related, like the "policy" key above
we're ignoring, how exactly would that have happened ? I'm more
willing to buy a story, where WMI doesn't start the first time
on its own, and something "bootstraps" it, and turns on that
registry key. But you can have a look and see what is what.
Paul

I await my next instructions (provided they're simple) with interest!
But you don't have to do this for me; until a couple of days ago I had
no idea this reliability monitor existed, so not having it hasn't hurt!

I thought it might be something simple.

I'm running out of stuff to try, so you're "off the hook".

Paul

[philo]

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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.

[dadiOH]

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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

[Paul]

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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

[D***@MadCow.net]

Post by Paul

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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...

[Thip]

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by Paul

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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.

[dadiOH]

Post by Paul

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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.

I only encounterd a bad power supply once. The primary symptom was randomly
failing to boot.

[D***@MadCow.net]

Post by Paul

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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 here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14039/windows-7-fix-corrupted-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

[D***@MadCow.net]

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by Paul

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14039/windows-7-fix-corrupted-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

Still having the problem and it's still a crap shoot every time to see
if it will complete successfully or if I have to shut off power and
restart,

The only suspicious Event that happens at every startup (if successful
or not) is this one for ATC.SYS not loading. It's a file installed by
BitDefender AV Free.

Here's the full content of the Event Viewer Details:

Begin============

Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 4/2/2018 1:57:13 PM
Event ID: 7026
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: AVA-386876-1
Description:
The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
atc
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Service Control Manager"
Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service
Control Manager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">7026</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2018-04-02T18:57:13.063476500Z" />
<EventRecordID>502112</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="876" ThreadID="880" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>AVA-386876-1</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">
atc</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

End==============

I found this:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/8696c69d-46ba-4309-8dd8-d30d126864f1/the-following-bootstart-or-systemstart-drivers-failed-to-load-atc?forum=w7itprogeneral

where someone was having a similar problem and Kate Li (MSFT CSG)
suggested removing the file to see if that solved it.

I was able to copy it to another drive for safe keeping, but I can't
remove or rename it. I receive a msg saying I need permission from
the administrators to do so. I am an administrator but that's not
enough.

At first the atc.sys properties said TrustedInstaller was in control
and I couldn't find a way to edit/change that. But now after several
attempts the TrustedInstaller entry is gone and it says SYSTEM is in
control, but it still won't let me mess with it.

I also tried to rename or delete it via Command Prompt (run as
Administrator) and as another user I created earlier (also an
administrator), but no go.

Next to try will be to learn how to use process monitor to capture the
statup process, but that will take a while.

Note that when startup does complete successfully and the desktop
appears, etc., everything seems to work fine for as long as I want to
use it. But then a restart, with normal appearing logoff, shutdown
and restart may or may not be a successful startup.

DC

[Ken1943]

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by Paul

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14039/windows-7-fix-corrupted-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

Still having the problem and it's still a crap shoot every time to see
if it will complete successfully or if I have to shut off power and
restart,
The only suspicious Event that happens at every startup (if successful
or not) is this one for ATC.SYS not loading. It's a file installed by
BitDefender AV Free.
Begin============
Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 4/2/2018 1:57:13 PM
Event ID: 7026
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: AVA-386876-1
atc
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Service Control Manager"
Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service
Control Manager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">7026</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2018-04-02T18:57:13.063476500Z" />
<EventRecordID>502112</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="876" ThreadID="880" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>AVA-386876-1</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">
atc</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
End==============
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/8696c69d-46ba-4309-8dd8-d30d126864f1/the-following-bootstart-or-systemstart-drivers-failed-to-load-atc?forum=w7itprogeneral
where someone was having a similar problem and Kate Li (MSFT CSG)
suggested removing the file to see if that solved it.
I was able to copy it to another drive for safe keeping, but I can't
remove or rename it. I receive a msg saying I need permission from
the administrators to do so. I am an administrator but that's not
enough.
At first the atc.sys properties said TrustedInstaller was in control
and I couldn't find a way to edit/change that. But now after several
attempts the TrustedInstaller entry is gone and it says SYSTEM is in
control, but it still won't let me mess with it.
I also tried to rename or delete it via Command Prompt (run as
Administrator) and as another user I created earlier (also an
administrator), but no go.
Next to try will be to learn how to use process monitor to capture the
statup process, but that will take a while.
Note that when startup does complete successfully and the desktop
appears, etc., everything seems to work fine for as long as I want to
use it. But then a restart, with normal appearing logoff, shutdown
and restart may or may not be a successful startup.
DC

Uninstall Bit Defender, not just a file.

[Paul]

Post by Ken1943

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by Paul

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14039/windows-7-fix-corrupted-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

Still having the problem and it's still a crap shoot every time to see
if it will complete successfully or if I have to shut off power and
restart,
The only suspicious Event that happens at every startup (if successful
or not) is this one for ATC.SYS not loading. It's a file installed by
BitDefender AV Free.
Begin============
Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 4/2/2018 1:57:13 PM
Event ID: 7026
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: AVA-386876-1
atc
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Service Control Manager"
Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service
Control Manager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">7026</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2018-04-02T18:57:13.063476500Z" />
<EventRecordID>502112</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="876" ThreadID="880" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>AVA-386876-1</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">
atc</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
End==============
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/8696c69d-46ba-4309-8dd8-d30d126864f1/the-following-bootstart-or-systemstart-drivers-failed-to-load-atc?forum=w7itprogeneral
where someone was having a similar problem and Kate Li (MSFT CSG)
suggested removing the file to see if that solved it.
I was able to copy it to another drive for safe keeping, but I can't
remove or rename it. I receive a msg saying I need permission from
the administrators to do so. I am an administrator but that's not
enough.
At first the atc.sys properties said TrustedInstaller was in control
and I couldn't find a way to edit/change that. But now after several
attempts the TrustedInstaller entry is gone and it says SYSTEM is in
control, but it still won't let me mess with it.
I also tried to rename or delete it via Command Prompt (run as
Administrator) and as another user I created earlier (also an
administrator), but no go.
Next to try will be to learn how to use process monitor to capture the
statup process, but that will take a while.
Note that when startup does complete successfully and the desktop
appears, etc., everything seems to work fine for as long as I want to
use it. But then a restart, with normal appearing logoff, shutdown
and restart may or may not be a successful startup.
DC

Uninstall Bit Defender, not just a file.

While Windows is running, not only does it have permissions
(like TrustedInstaller), but it also has Windows File Protection,
to prevent malware from messing around. Of course, real malware
doesn't particularly care about WFP, but WFP is a great way
to prevent *users* from messing around.

Your advice is a good one, to simply remove Bit Defender
as part of an experiment, to see if it's the root cause.

If I was doing this, for safety I would back up C: first,
then remove BitDefender. I could then restore my perfectly
working BitDefender + Windows installation later, from
that backup, if I didn't like the mess I'd made for myself.

Just yesterday, I "walked out of a mess" by using a 100GB
backup of C: , so I regularly use this backup technique when I know
an experiment will lead to grief. I had made extensive changes
to a multitude of network settings, and I "didn't have to
be careful, because I had a backup".

AV companies regularly provide "uninstall/cleaner tools"
for their products. Going to Programs and Features and
uninstalling, is the first step. The "cleaner" can remove
AV services which are "difficult" to remove. Some AV companies
make this kind of utility harder to find than others.
And note, that the instructions for usage are important.
A cleaner can either be run, to do the entire job. Or
a cleaner can be intended to *only* be run after the
Programs and Features removal has been attempted.
You need to download the cleaner, but also carefully
read the instructions for usage.

https://www.bitdefender.com/uninstall/

Paul

[D***@MadCow.net]

Post by Paul

Post by Ken1943

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by Paul

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14039/windows-7-fix-corrupted-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

Still having the problem and it's still a crap shoot every time to see
if it will complete successfully or if I have to shut off power and
restart,
The only suspicious Event that happens at every startup (if successful
or not) is this one for ATC.SYS not loading. It's a file installed by
BitDefender AV Free.
Begin============
Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 4/2/2018 1:57:13 PM
Event ID: 7026
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: AVA-386876-1
atc
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Service Control Manager"
Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service
Control Manager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">7026</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2018-04-02T18:57:13.063476500Z" />
<EventRecordID>502112</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="876" ThreadID="880" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>AVA-386876-1</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">
atc</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
End==============
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/8696c69d-46ba-4309-8dd8-d30d126864f1/the-following-bootstart-or-systemstart-drivers-failed-to-load-atc?forum=w7itprogeneral
where someone was having a similar problem and Kate Li (MSFT CSG)
suggested removing the file to see if that solved it.
I was able to copy it to another drive for safe keeping, but I can't
remove or rename it. I receive a msg saying I need permission from
the administrators to do so. I am an administrator but that's not
enough.
At first the atc.sys properties said TrustedInstaller was in control
and I couldn't find a way to edit/change that. But now after several
attempts the TrustedInstaller entry is gone and it says SYSTEM is in
control, but it still won't let me mess with it.
I also tried to rename or delete it via Command Prompt (run as
Administrator) and as another user I created earlier (also an
administrator), but no go.
Next to try will be to learn how to use process monitor to capture the
statup process, but that will take a while.
Note that when startup does complete successfully and the desktop
appears, etc., everything seems to work fine for as long as I want to
use it. But then a restart, with normal appearing logoff, shutdown
and restart may or may not be a successful startup.
DC

Uninstall Bit Defender, not just a file.

While Windows is running, not only does it have permissions
(like TrustedInstaller), but it also has Windows File Protection,
to prevent malware from messing around. Of course, real malware
doesn't particularly care about WFP, but WFP is a great way
to prevent *users* from messing around.
Your advice is a good one, to simply remove Bit Defender
as part of an experiment, to see if it's the root cause.
If I was doing this, for safety I would back up C: first,
then remove BitDefender. I could then restore my perfectly
working BitDefender + Windows installation later, from
that backup, if I didn't like the mess I'd made for myself.
Just yesterday, I "walked out of a mess" by using a 100GB
backup of C: , so I regularly use this backup technique when I know
an experiment will lead to grief. I had made extensive changes
to a multitude of network settings, and I "didn't have to
be careful, because I had a backup".
AV companies regularly provide "uninstall/cleaner tools"
for their products. Going to Programs and Features and
uninstalling, is the first step. The "cleaner" can remove
AV services which are "difficult" to remove. Some AV companies
make this kind of utility harder to find than others.
And note, that the instructions for usage are important.
A cleaner can either be run, to do the entire job. Or
a cleaner can be intended to *only* be run after the
Programs and Features removal has been attempted.
You need to download the cleaner, but also carefully
read the instructions for usage.
https://www.bitdefender.com/uninstall/
Paul

Thanks, Paul. I'll follow your suggestions and see what happens.

DC

[D***@MadCow.net]

On Mon, 02 Apr 2018 17:58:14 -0400, Paul <***@needed.invalid>
wrote:

< snipped for brevity>

Post by Paul

Post by Ken1943
Uninstall Bit Defender, not just a file.

While Windows is running, not only does it have permissions
(like TrustedInstaller), but it also has Windows File Protection,
to prevent malware from messing around. Of course, real malware
doesn't particularly care about WFP, but WFP is a great way
to prevent *users* from messing around.
Your advice is a good one, to simply remove Bit Defender
as part of an experiment, to see if it's the root cause.
If I was doing this, for safety I would back up C: first,
then remove BitDefender. I could then restore my perfectly
working BitDefender + Windows installation later, from
that backup, if I didn't like the mess I'd made for myself.
Just yesterday, I "walked out of a mess" by using a 100GB
backup of C: , so I regularly use this backup technique when I know
an experiment will lead to grief. I had made extensive changes
to a multitude of network settings, and I "didn't have to
be careful, because I had a backup".
AV companies regularly provide "uninstall/cleaner tools"
for their products. Going to Programs and Features and
uninstalling, is the first step. The "cleaner" can remove
AV services which are "difficult" to remove. Some AV companies
make this kind of utility harder to find than others.
And note, that the instructions for usage are important.
A cleaner can either be run, to do the entire job. Or
a cleaner can be intended to *only* be run after the
Programs and Features removal has been attempted.
You need to download the cleaner, but also carefully
read the instructions for usage.
https://www.bitdefender.com/uninstall/
Paul

Turns out their Uninstall is for Paid or Trial version. I have the
Free version.

So I'll follow your strategy but use the Control Panel Uninstall
feature and see how it goes. I'll use Windows Explorer and RegEdit to
look for leftover stuff to delete. Startup is invoked with a
scheduled task so I'll look there too.

I should have time tomorrow.

Thanks,

DC

[D***@MadCow.net]

Post by Paul

Post by Ken1943

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by Paul

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14039/windows-7-fix-corrupted-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

Still having the problem and it's still a crap shoot every time to see
if it will complete successfully or if I have to shut off power and
restart,
The only suspicious Event that happens at every startup (if successful
or not) is this one for ATC.SYS not loading. It's a file installed by
BitDefender AV Free.
Begin============
Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 4/2/2018 1:57:13 PM
Event ID: 7026
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: AVA-386876-1
atc
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Service Control Manager"
Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service
Control Manager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">7026</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2018-04-02T18:57:13.063476500Z" />
<EventRecordID>502112</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="876" ThreadID="880" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>AVA-386876-1</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">
atc</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
End==============
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/8696c69d-46ba-4309-8dd8-d30d126864f1/the-following-bootstart-or-systemstart-drivers-failed-to-load-atc?forum=w7itprogeneral
where someone was having a similar problem and Kate Li (MSFT CSG)
suggested removing the file to see if that solved it.
I was able to copy it to another drive for safe keeping, but I can't
remove or rename it. I receive a msg saying I need permission from
the administrators to do so. I am an administrator but that's not
enough.
At first the atc.sys properties said TrustedInstaller was in control
and I couldn't find a way to edit/change that. But now after several
attempts the TrustedInstaller entry is gone and it says SYSTEM is in
control, but it still won't let me mess with it.
I also tried to rename or delete it via Command Prompt (run as
Administrator) and as another user I created earlier (also an
administrator), but no go.
Next to try will be to learn how to use process monitor to capture the
statup process, but that will take a while.
Note that when startup does complete successfully and the desktop
appears, etc., everything seems to work fine for as long as I want to
use it. But then a restart, with normal appearing logoff, shutdown
and restart may or may not be a successful startup.
DC

Uninstall Bit Defender, not just a file.

While Windows is running, not only does it have permissions
(like TrustedInstaller), but it also has Windows File Protection,
to prevent malware from messing around. Of course, real malware
doesn't particularly care about WFP, but WFP is a great way
to prevent *users* from messing around.
Your advice is a good one, to simply remove Bit Defender
as part of an experiment, to see if it's the root cause.
If I was doing this, for safety I would back up C: first,
then remove BitDefender. I could then restore my perfectly
working BitDefender + Windows installation later, from
that backup, if I didn't like the mess I'd made for myself.
Just yesterday, I "walked out of a mess" by using a 100GB
backup of C: , so I regularly use this backup technique when I know
an experiment will lead to grief. I had made extensive changes
to a multitude of network settings, and I "didn't have to
be careful, because I had a backup".
AV companies regularly provide "uninstall/cleaner tools"
for their products. Going to Programs and Features and
uninstalling, is the first step. The "cleaner" can remove
AV services which are "difficult" to remove. Some AV companies
make this kind of utility harder to find than others.
And note, that the instructions for usage are important.
A cleaner can either be run, to do the entire job. Or
a cleaner can be intended to *only* be run after the
Programs and Features removal has been attempted.
You need to download the cleaner, but also carefully
read the instructions for usage.
https://www.bitdefender.com/uninstall/
Paul

Removing BitDefender Free seems like it solved the problem.

After removing it via Control Panel Uninstall, I cleaned up empty
folders and some logs. The Task that launched it was gone and the
registry looked good too.

Startup times are much faster - every time. I tried Windows Restart,
Shutdown (and manual restart) and power down and restart. A total of
16 times with no hesitation. Apps open faster too. Everything feels
fresh and brisk now.

Using MR images before and after changes is THE way to go.

Thanks to all who offered advice!

DC

[tesla sTinker]

ok, now what you want to do, is go to novirusthanks.com

and get the malware remover. Download it.

Then run the thing. It will reset windows so that you are clean.
Make sure you delete everything it shows you in the temp files.
Yes, it offers this to you instead of just whamo. Check all items,
then it will ever start up faster.

http://www.novirusthanks.org/products/malware-remover/

believe me, you want those original values.

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by Paul

Post by Ken1943

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by D***@MadCow.net

Post by Paul

Post by dadiOH

Post by philo

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.
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.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14039/windows-7-fix-corrupted-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

Still having the problem and it's still a crap shoot every time to see
if it will complete successfully or if I have to shut off power and
restart,
The only suspicious Event that happens at every startup (if successful
or not) is this one for ATC.SYS not loading. It's a file installed by
BitDefender AV Free.
Begin============
Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 4/2/2018 1:57:13 PM
Event ID: 7026
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: AVA-386876-1
atc
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Service Control Manager"
Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service
Control Manager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">7026</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2018-04-02T18:57:13.063476500Z" />
<EventRecordID>502112</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="876" ThreadID="880" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>AVA-386876-1</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">
atc</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
End==============
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/8696c69d-46ba-4309-8dd8-d30d126864f1/the-following-bootstart-or-systemstart-drivers-failed-to-load-atc?forum=w7itprogeneral
where someone was having a similar problem and Kate Li (MSFT CSG)
suggested removing the file to see if that solved it.
I was able to copy it to another drive for safe keeping, but I can't
remove or rename it. I receive a msg saying I need permission from
the administrators to do so. I am an administrator but that's not
enough.
At first the atc.sys properties said TrustedInstaller was in control
and I couldn't find a way to edit/change that. But now after several
attempts the TrustedInstaller entry is gone and it says SYSTEM is in
control, but it still won't let me mess with it.
I also tried to rename or delete it via Command Prompt (run as
Administrator) and as another user I created earlier (also an
administrator), but no go.
Next to try will be to learn how to use process monitor to capture the
statup process, but that will take a while.
Note that when startup does complete successfully and the desktop
appears, etc., everything seems to work fine for as long as I want to
use it. But then a restart, with normal appearing logoff, shutdown
and restart may or may not be a successful startup.
DC

Uninstall Bit Defender, not just a file.

While Windows is running, not only does it have permissions
(like TrustedInstaller), but it also has Windows File Protection,
to prevent malware from messing around. Of course, real malware
doesn't particularly care about WFP, but WFP is a great way
to prevent *users* from messing around.
Your advice is a good one, to simply remove Bit Defender
as part of an experiment, to see if it's the root cause.
If I was doing this, for safety I would back up C: first,
then remove BitDefender. I could then restore my perfectly
working BitDefender + Windows installation later, from
that backup, if I didn't like the mess I'd made for myself.
Just yesterday, I "walked out of a mess" by using a 100GB
backup of C: , so I regularly use this backup technique when I know
an experiment will lead to grief. I had made extensive changes
to a multitude of network settings, and I "didn't have to
be careful, because I had a backup".
AV companies regularly provide "uninstall/cleaner tools"
for their products. Going to Programs and Features and
uninstalling, is the first step. The "cleaner" can remove
AV services which are "difficult" to remove. Some AV companies
make this kind of utility harder to find than others.
And note, that the instructions for usage are important.
A cleaner can either be run, to do the entire job. Or
a cleaner can be intended to *only* be run after the
Programs and Features removal has been attempted.
You need to download the cleaner, but also carefully
read the instructions for usage.
https://www.bitdefender.com/uninstall/
Paul

Removing BitDefender Free seems like it solved the problem.
After removing it via Control Panel Uninstall, I cleaned up empty
folders and some logs. The Task that launched it was gone and the
registry looked good too.
Startup times are much faster - every time. I tried Windows Restart,
Shutdown (and manual restart) and power down and restart. A total of
16 times with no hesitation. Apps open faster too. Everything feels
fresh and brisk now.
Using MR images before and after changes is THE way to go.
Thanks to all who offered advice!
DC

[Char Jackson]

On Sat, 07 Apr 2018 17:29:49 -0700, tesla sTinker

Post by tesla sTinker
ok, now what you want to do, is go to novirusthanks.com
and get the malware remover. Download it.

From your link above:
Last Updated April 30, 2011

Wow, still pushing that old dog? I say "No, thanks."

[Good Guy]

Post by D***@MadCow.net
After replacing the HD one week ago, it worked fine every day, until
today.

This is yet another evidence that you don't have the necessary
intelligence to use a Windows System. Have you thought of re-formating
the HD to install a Linux Operating System? They don't have any
problems so you are likely to enjoy it.

Windows systems always required some intelligence and Windows 10 now
requires serious training to use it. You are old and demented so please
find something else. You are wasting everybody's time on these
newsgroups. You are worst than the mad cows we have seen before.

Post by D***@MadCow.net

/--- This email has been checked for viruses by
Windows Defender software.
//https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/comprehensive-security/