Vista stuck at welcome screen

[Lexluethar]

I have a client who's computer gets stuck at the welcome screen. Stuck in the sense that the system works, if you press ctrl+alt+del twice you can get into windows. Safemode boots fine, and if i require a password on login that works fine too.

Originally i thought this was a corruption of Vista (no SP) because SP1 wouldn't install either. I did a restore using the Dell utility. Before doing that i ran a half dozen full system hardware diagnostics to ensure the hard drive wasn't bad. Everything passed every time without any issues.

So after the restore SP1 installed fine. I installed all other updated for Vista then the issue started again. As i was updating multiple things i can't pin down what caused the issue. I have a strong feelign it is Norton as that was updated right before.

To troubleshoot i'm going to start disabling startup services until i find the one that is causing this issue, but i wanted to know if this was a known issue or if anyone has had similar issues. I've done some digging and have had multiple people have the same issue, but no one pinpointed where the conflict was occuring.

 

[brady]

does safemode do the same thing?
reason: if it does, it's software and not driver or startup 'services'.

Check size of local profile. remove files/folders (Replace with "shortcuts")

 

[Lexluethar]

Safemode does not do the same thing. I agree it probably is software.

I don't understand you last sentence. This is a very small profile that only has about 20 microsoft word documents and 20 Microsoft contacts used.

 

[brady]

through the documents and settings folder, you should see the profile or "account name" you're using to login. I would check the properties of that folder to see the size. Sometimes computers from like "dell" or HP come with a bunch of stuff in the profile which slows down the "startup" process a lot.

from my experiences with vista and 7, the startup is automatically slower than xp for whatever reason(s).

 

[Lexluethar]

7 is way faster than Vista startup IMO. It is comparable to XP.

No the profile doesn't have anything - i made a point to go through and clean house after doing the restore.

It isn't a matter of speed, it gets stuck. I could let it load for 5 hours (and have) and it still doesn't load. You press ctrl+alt+del twice and you get the task manager, cancel that and you get the desktop.

 

[brady]

Ahh, gotcha. Sorry I misread that.

I see that you said Safemode does NOT get 'stuck'.

Disable everything in startup (except nic related stuff) then reboot it.

I've found the most random things can ruin startups. ex: scanner software that just kept searching for USB devices and so on.

If this were me, I would just disable all startup through msconfig, then boot normally

If that fixes the "sticking", simply go through and enable "needed" startup services 1 by 1.

I did notice you had said that norton was updated before this started happening... If necessary, uninstall norton through safemode or after disabling startups.

 

[Lexluethar]

Will do, thanks.

Anyone else have similar issues?

 

[Lexluethar]

So after a night of disabling startup services and programs i'm still stuck at the same point. I got to the point of only having three services starting and I thought i pinpointed to problem. I restarted 4 times without it getting stuck. Then i enabled a handfull of startup programs again and it started to give me the same issue.

Then i disabled everything but logmein and i was still getting stuck at the welcome screen.

Tonight i'm going to do a disk check. Also will ensure that the computer does not give the same issue in safemode (it didn't at first but haven't tested since).

 

[brady]

LMI has caused problems on machines in the past. Servers usually, but never the less...

I am very interested to see this play out, so if you do have the time to update the thread that would be cool.

oh and my win 7 machine at home has nothing checked in the startup. I disabled all right off the bat and it runs like a champ still.

 

[Lexluethar]

I'll keep you guys posted, and if you find something please post it as well.

I have a few more ideas. I'm going to test safemode again. Assuming that works i'll jump back to the stopping services / programs from starting (although i disabled everything last night w/o any luck).

I've searched and searched and no one has a solution. The closest i've come in someone saying that they disabled the event log and that worked.

Also interesting to note all of the forums i've read on the issue were created just this past month, so i'm wondering if there was a software update that was pushed out that caused this (no not an MS update but one on a widely used software that comes with laptops).