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Update

I've decided to video some of the issues:

Perhaps I should break this into three separate issues. These issues came with my freshly-bought Windows 7 installation (although I may or may not have customized some services perhaps before the issues started):

Issue list

  • The Windows Explorer window responsible for opening "Network and Sharing Center" freezes when the same is opened.
  • Windows lags on shutdown at one of two screens. (1) The "Shutting Down" prompt; (2) The "Logging Off" prompt. It must be hard reset.
  • Windows starts such that only the background color is shown. The mouse can be moved, and I can use alt+ctrl+del to start task manager, then using file->run to open other programs. After about thirty minutes, the task bar and desktop background and desktop icons return.
  • When I start Windows, and the desktop and icons and what-all come up right away, I cannot click anything on the task bar, including the start button. I can click and open desktop icons, but I cannot click inside any running program, including windows explorer, unless I run something as an administrator or run task manager, at which time this issue resolves.
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    To me this smells of a pending hard drive failure or a damaged filesystem (made worse by hard shutdowns) but there could be any number of other equally likely causes. Use e.g. Crystal Disk Info to check if the drive is reporting any SMART errors. Also consider running memtest86 to check for any malfunctioning RAM, and give it a good malware scan (e.g. with MalwareBytes, full scan). Does the issue occur when you have wifi disabled / the ethernet cable unplugged? Is there anything unusual in the event log (Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer)?
    – Jason C
    Jul 6, 2014 at 18:56
  • Also do you have any antivirus / security software installed? Sometimes the more heavyweight packages can interfere with certain system operations. You mentioned you may have customized some services; can you be more specific? Did anything else change around the time this was triggered? What kind of PC do you have?
    – Jason C
    Jul 6, 2014 at 19:01
  • I use "Zone Alarm: Free" and "Spybot: S&D". I used BlackViper's "Safe" settings: blackviper.com/service-configurations/…
    – Wolfpack'08
    Jul 6, 2014 at 20:02
  • chkdsk /r c: Then reboot and let it run for hours.
    – cybernard
    Jul 6, 2014 at 20:37
  • Did chkdsk. Checked my harddrive. It wasn't broken. I did this about a week or a week and a half ago, suspecting the same thing--harddrive failure. I've had these problems for about a year.
    – Wolfpack'08
    Jul 6, 2014 at 22:39

1 Answer 1

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I was searching around for the same issue. For me Windows Media player was also doing the same thing. Blank white screen and frozen.

One by one I closed each window and the culprit was Mozilla Thunderbird. After closing thunderbird I got a message saying "Windows Explorer has stopped working" then I clicked "Restart Windows Explorer" and everything was back to normal.

So anyone finding this can try:

  • Open the Start menu.
  • Hold down the Control and Shift keys, and right-click on a blank space in the Start menu.
  • Choose "Exit Explorer."
  • Open the Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), navigate to File->Run, enter "explorer" and hit OK.

Mind you, the problematic program can be something else. I should update Thunderbird as I've been ignoring it for 3 weeks.

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