After doing the security update for windows 8.1 my pc seems to have gone haywire. None of my apps will open or work, I'm locked onto a local account and not my linked account, only google chrome and steam will open.
This problem happened before so I finally broke down and restored all the way back to windows 8.
Windows operating system, namely Windows 8, in which you cannot force quit programs but must restart the PC to stop a program. Often, this results in a user retsrating his garbage PC over 5 times a day.
View 9 Replies View RelatedMy laptop (Dell Inspiron 2013 64-bit) was playing up today and instead of restarting it, I foolishly clicked on the option to "refresh the pc". Little did I know that this would remove all my current programs....
I decided then to do a System Restore. Now, all my programs are back, however, the majority of my programs such Firefox, Microsoft Office and such will not even open!!!
I would just like to know if there is anyway to get these programs running again without having to reinstall them all?
I have a sony vaio laptop which came with a pre-installed windows 8 OS. I recently upgraded it to windows 8.1. After the upgrade, I have observed that many softwares that are actually installed on the system are not listed in the apps list, such as Microsoft office, autocad, freemake, etc. It becomes really inconvenient to open any new file of these software.
View 5 Replies View RelatedWould really like for windows apps to open 50% view by default instead of forcing me to manually do this each time.
Edit: I'm talking about Metro apps, not everyday 3rd party programs that run on desktop version.
When I open a .pdf it uses the Reader app. I have no problem with that except when I am on a website it opens the pdf in a new half window. Meaning the original site and the .pdf each are in their own side by side window. Yes I can drag it to full but everything I read said it should open full. Or at least that's how I would like it.
I have not found any settings to make it always open full. I should say that if I just open the Reader app on its own it does open full screen.
When I open Microsoft word, Mozilla Firefox, Photoshop pretty much almost all the programs that I open.
I use a HP Pavilion 20 All In One Desktop
No I don't have 2 antiviruses working just in case. Kinda stutters browsing and using the programs.
Some programs are becoming slow to load or do not recognize their connection to a file extension. Most noticeable are Nitro PDF Professional which doesn't always start when I click on a PDF file, sometimes it does, some times it doesn't. Quicken is often slow to start, some times the window opens then it waits for the display, sometimes the there is a wait until the window even opens. Same for xplorer2 opening and even selecting another folder. Going back to Windows 7 with almost the identical installed programs/utilities (about 40) the "problem" goes away.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI have 3 user accounts.
1. Administrator
2. initial user
3. new user
So the initial user is the one you are forced to create when first setting up Windows 8.1. It's a local user meaning that I set it up without signing into a MSA.
In both the Administrator and the initial user, all the WinRT apps/tiles work. Like the weather will show up and everything.
Whether I change the Initial User to Standard or Administrator, everything still works fine. Of course, the Administrator can't open WinRT apps which is standard and normal. And the initial user can't use apps without signing into MSA. But it all still works perfectly fine.
The problem is with the new user. The new user is meant to be in Administrator mode because it's my main account. But whether I set it up as Standard or Administrator, it's the same thing. None of my WinRT apps work.
Even when I sign into my MSA with the new user, it's still the same thing. It synchronizes to my OneDrive online. It recognizes that I'm completely signed in online. Yet it's still the exact same thing with the WinRT apps. None of them work. Even when I try to open up the Windows Store. It just continues to try to open, but doesn't go all the way through. So whether I'm signed into my MSA for the third user or not, it still gives the same problem.
I ran Windows Update, and it worked perfectly. Everything is up to date.
Recently my mom visited a website that tricked her. She downloaded and installed some stuff she didn't need. I removed the stuff but noticed some other problems. I'm not sure if these are new problems caused by the useless stuff she installed.
Control Panel -> Programs -> Programs and Features is not showing all installed programs. Oddly, the only listed installed programs have names that start with the letter M. 14 programs are listed. See picture. Start Menu -> All Programs -> I suspect some programs are missing. I have a Win 7 style Start menu because I am using IObit's Start Menu 8 program. Control Panel -> System and Security -> Administrative Tools was empty. I fixed that by using SFC /SCANNOW.
I tried using System Restore to go back to an earlier date, but that didn't work. In the process of trying to do that I discovered that BitDefender Internet Security 2014 doesn't get along with Windows 8.1's System Restore feature. I uninstalled BitDefender and successfully went back to an earlier date but still had the same problems with missing programs. I undid the restore. I created a new Windows user account. The new account had the same issues: missing programs in the Start menu and Programs and Features menu.
Whenever I try to install Microsoft Office 2013, the progress bar reaches full then reverses about half way then I get an error saying "Microsoft setup bootstrapper has stopped working". I have already tried clean booting, safe mode, turning off AV, using repair kit. I tried installing Microsoft .NET framework but it said my OS already comes with it, however I cannot find it in Programs and Features.
INFO
-I do not press "Install" I use a custom install settings
-I have autorun disabled so I open it by running setup.exe as admin
-I have the preview evaluation version
-32 bit version will install however I want 64 bit because my computer is a 64 bit OS
Windows 8.1. I had an issue with the general user folder name, which was shown as "Alex_000". Although this was a cosmetic issue only, I wanted to change this to "Alex". I successfully managed this by changing about 50 entries in the registry (via regedit).
So fine so good. Now I found out that there are still some leftovers with "Alex_000" in the Windows system, although I have tried to find every bit and peace, where possible:
When I try to open "Add or Remove Programs" in the Metro surface, I get an error message:
Windows cannot find
'C:Usersalex_000...Classic_{a lot of weird chars}.settingscontent-ms'.
Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.
Somewhere in the system, there must still be links with Alex_000 existing. I tried searching the registry, tried a simple search on C: disc - no success.
In other words: Everything works fine - except of starting the apps from the metro surface for "remove software", or "user accounts", and maybe some other system apps, which I haven´t discovered yet. If I do the same from the desktop, no problem - all these apps work well!
So where are the referring links for such system apps within the metro surface stored? Obviously not in the registry... How/where can i find these orphaned links for the said apps in Metro?
I've been having the BSOD Issue for a week or two now. It takes forever to boot and then it gives me a blue screen with the Error Driver_Power_State_Failure. I tried going back restore points...that dint work.
I also tried Refreshing and Resetting the PC using those settings on Windows...Still same issues...And also because of this...my system is becoming very slow now as well.
Over a month ago, I noticed that my system had started to become very slow, taking a long time to switch between apps, or between tabs in Chrome (even with only a few tabs open).
I've constantly had Resource Monitor open to try and track down the source of the problem. Initially, I thought this was a problem with Chrome or my pagefile, because Chrome was often at/near the top of Disk Activity, manipulating pagefile.sys. However, it seems like the amount of data being manipulated isn't very large; typically well below 1 MB/sec. I tried moving my pagefile to a secondary hard drive to no effect.
I've downloaded and run multiple programs to check hard drive health, and none of them have found any problems. I'm not talking about simple S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics, but in-depth scans.
Thinking that it might be a problem with Windows 7 at the time, I wiped the drive and installed Windows 8.1. I installed the latest motherboard drivers and disabled Windows search and file indexing. The problem remains. The fact that the problem persists after wiping the drive had me thinking it's likely a hardware problem. Alas, various hard drive scanners haven't found a problem.
I have 8GB of memory; rarely is more than 4GB ever in use. Both of my hard drives have plenty of free space (400+ GB each).
I've been having some trouble lately with certain applications that I now realize are all 32-bit applications. When launching the applications (iTunes, windows media player and games) it can takes from 2 to 4 minutes to load and depending on what I do in then application (i.e. in iTunes, I can click on preferences or the option to burn playlist to CD) the application hangs again and comes back after 2 to 4 minutes. With media player - if I leave it up and click on another AVI then it works as expected but if I close media player and then open another AVI/Mpeg then the app will hang for 2 to 4 minutes.
Any of the windows applications come up fine and office applications (Office 2013 64 bit) so I have narrowed it down to 32 bit apps. The task manager will list the application as not responding but it does come up eventually.
I had everyone working fine before and I did do a complete reinstall (installed Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit) and then immediately did the Windows 8 upgrade (with Media center). It was fine for a few weeks and then the issue started to happen which I noticed with Media Player and then iTunes.
So there was no change with safe mode and I did do a SFC /scannow which came out fine.
I have a home grown PC:
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (I know, its almost 3 yrs old), Core i7 3.0 Ghz cpu, Samsung SSD 840 Pro as the OS drive, Gigabyte GX 560 video card, Ceton Xfinity tuner card, an Avermedia OTA tuner card and multiple hard drives.
I'm running Windows 8 Pro with media center.
so after I did windows updates after a long time (it's for a good reason that I am not updating) the notebook failed to start correctly. After the windows loading screen, only different tones of black were flashing - probably bad graphics driver. Anyway, I managed to do a system restore. Although it said it wasn't successful, it works But now some programs won't start. From Adobe, AfterEffects starts without problems, but Photoshop and Illustrator has an error: [URL]
When I try to uninstall Office completely, the set-up window doesn't even come up. And what's worse... when I run a new installation from a disk, there's an error too. [URL]
I've never come across something like this.. I don't know what to do.
Edit: So I managed to uninstall Office through a 3rd party software.. but I still have trouble installing it back (a different error now). I run as administrator and have full user rights on the folder..
My father accidentally fell for the "your media player needs to be updated" and downloaded a ton of malware.
I used this guide: [URL]
And now it is running EXTREMELY slow and it can't load any Windows services on the computer. Any time I try to open a program it just stops responding.
Also while I was doing the malware removal "Safe mode with networking" was working fine. Now in the same "Safe mode with networking" the network isn't working. No internet available.
I am getting an error message "Failed to connect to system event notification center"
All the malware still isn't gone from Chrome but I need to fix this problem first.
I have Office 2010 which came preinstalled on my Dell 8300 XPS. I have the key and have recovered the program in the past.
If I Refresh my pc, and find the folder Windows. Old, can I get the Office program out of it or do I have to download from a site and install again?
Obviously I don't know what is in the folder nor what it allows you to retrieve . I do know that when done with it you can delete it.
I can retrieve some of the programs and apps that refresh removes and that is not hard to do. Perhaps I just open the folder, locate the program, and copy and paste it or click 'reinstall'.
I recently got myself into a quandary. I installed 4 additional drives with the intent of creating a RAID volume that's supported by the BIOS. In order to do that I must change the BIOS setting for the controller which includes all volumes including my boot drive (which I don't intend to RAID.) The problem I have is that when I switch the controller from UEFI to RAID, Windows Recovery will not use the System Image that I made. It says the volume was created under a different setting (Bios vs. EFI).
What are my options? Is there a different backup setting that will preserve all my installed software? I'm not concerned about data which I can copy to an external volume but it would take several days to get all my software reinstalled. I'd like to avoid that. I assume I will have to reinstall Windows 8.1 Pro and then use a backup program to restore everything else. If that's the case, then I need to know which backup program will work. If there's a better way, I'd love to know. I see my options as either, get another backup program, get a separate controller card for either the boot drive or the RAID volume, or reinstall everything.
Running Windows 8, the system boots into a user account without login.
The launcher seems to work, I can bring up the desktop. From the desktop I cannot launch any programs, other than a non-admin DOS window- but from there I can't launch any other non command.com EXE.
When I try and run any desktop app, the icon comes up and highlights for about 5-10 seconds, then goes back to normal. I can't even ht CTRL-ALT-DEL and run Task Manager. It just never comes up.
Logging out never gets me back to the login screen.
I can swap accounts- but the other account never gets logged in. Just waits forever (or, at least, a long time).
When I launch Metro apps, the splash comes up to the app... and that's it. I can CTRL-F4 it, and that's it.
Hitting F8 on boot doesn't do anything (no safe mode anymore?).
Win8 Control Panel Empty-My Docs-Library problem
A system restore did not work. PC "refresh" did not work. I've done a number of checks/scans (CHKDSK/ ScanDisk , sfc /scannow, Windows Defender, TDSSKILLER, and Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit) without any threats/errors occurring (I know it's not an exhaustive list.). I'm at my wits' end.
Simply, I understand that "reset" (Reset Windows 8) supposedly (and I'll get to why I say that) removes everything and reinstalls.
Assuming this is a copy of the Windows 8 that was originally activated the first day I used my computer, I should be by the above definition be able to go back and rebuild what had been a system without this problem for about five months (length of time since purchased, approx.). I also have burned recovery DVDs from the first day of use.
There must have been a reason that "Refresh" didn't work. Is this Reset as good as the old reinstallation from discs that I'd done, for example, on XP in the past? Do I need to wipe everything or can I just do the quick (just remove files, not fully clean) reset?
I can't imagine anything outside of the OS causing my situation. Is there any way with "Reset" (assuming not an OS issue alone) that the problem can migrate to the new "installation?" I've never updated the BIOS or any such thing.
I have two, probably connected, issues with my new Windows 8.1-running laptop.
Recently, and very suddenly, all Windows 8 metro apps have stopped working.
A typical experience: Swipe for charms bar > Settings > Change PC settings .... This then takes me to the metro start screen. If I press the windows key, it shows me the settings icon in full screen for a few seconds then takes me back to the start screen. This happens for every app!
(I have followed this, but to no avail: Can't access "Change PC Settings" in Win 8 - Microsoft Community.)
Also, I have been getting the 'No apps are installed to open this kind of link' error message when opening a magnet link in uTorrent and selecting to download a program from the BBC iPlayer website, using the previously installed BBC iPlayer Downloads program for windows.
I have reinstalled both programs, restarted multiple times and used CC Cleaner to try repair any possible damage to the registry, but all this has had no effect. I have tried to open both magnet links and iPlayer downloads using Internet Explorer instead, but this hasn't done anything either.
Other Relevant Info:
I have recently tried Iobit's Advanced System Care (or, ASC) programs, but I uninstalled them all because I suspected they were causing at least some of the issues. As far as I know, the internet link problem (#2) started first. In the past, I have had to reinstall the BBC iPlayer Downloads program because it would lose saved programs and stop working because (I think) ASC deleted some of its temporary files.
Edit: Also, the problems seem to coincide with the recent 8.1 update... but that isn't necessarily relevant.
I've had windows 8 for a bit, but since I've installed the OS not a single one of my windows apps will work. I've tried a lot of options and none fix it. I will open up a app ( windows store app or PC settings for example) and it will open and display the icon and blown up screen then immediately minimizes and will not allow me to maximize it. I'm so tired of it! I can't download any new apps or update my old ones let alone use any of them. I ran a basic trouble shoot through Microsoft and it came up at one point saying I need a Microsoft account. which is crazy because I've put in my CD key like 50 times and registered it when I put the OS on this computer . Windows 8.1
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have the new laptop with Windows 8.Is there any way you can change the apps on the start menu to be programs so I can view them as windows on my Desktop? Like Skype and Video or Music. Because I don't really like having to change from app to app to app to desktop to do what I want.
View 5 Replies View RelatedIt's been at-least 5 months sense I've got my computer, never once have i used the app store! Every app that connects to the internet doesn't work! I've tried waiting forever, I can't even create another profile all i have is administrator.
View 9 Replies View Relatedwhen I used one of my Metro App(Asphalt 8), The game showed the Gameloft logo but right after that it crashed.
Then I used another app which was Weather.. but it worked fine.. Again I tested Facebook app and it also crashed...
So then I downloaded one app (Flappy Birds Free) and it also crashed.. So I think that the downloaded apps are getting crashed.. I tried several fixes like using another user, turning off Windows Defender and Firewall, Clean booting, Updating Video drivers, scanning for viruses, using Metro apps troubleshooter, sfc /scannow, and all sorts of things.. There is only one more option left and that is to refresh Windows. But I don't have 8 CD. It got broken.. and I can't afford to buy a new one.. What should I do now?
,Im running Windows 8.1 Pro and everything app related ran fine.Weather, news etc. got it all configured and setup nicely on my home screen.I dont remember to have done anything substantial to my files, but one day i had to look at this screen:
The apps dont work anymore, opening one of them just shows a blank screen.uninstalling an app works, but while reinstalling i get the error code 0x80070490 and cant reinstall, weather app in this example.Other apps except the default microsoft shipped ones, seem to behave fine.I did wsreset and downloaded that app fix tool, nothing changed.
I'm on win 8 x64. I just did a fresh install and got all the updates. Everything seems fine except there r a few programs that I can't get to run. These programs install with no errors but when I try to run them they won't open. These programs worked before so I know they're not the problem and they're all legit. I emailed the support people but haven't heard anything yet.
Ashampoo burning studio 12. The compact mode runs but the normal mode fails
Coffeecup HTML editor v12. I get an error when opening it and have to close the program.
Farstone Total Recovery Pro. When I try to run it nothing happens and it doesn't show in task manager.
p.s. I tried all the compatibility, run as administrator options etc. also ran sfc and got no errors
Microsoft Talks About How Windows 8.1 Preview Will Work
On x86-based Windows systems, both Windows Store/Metro-Style and Desktop apps will need to be reinstalled.
Because some folks I talk to these days are mixing "apps" and "programs" into the same bag, I want to clarify something ... per the above quote, if I
1) install 8.1 preview; then,
2) install a program (not an app from the app store), like Photoshop ...
Will I have to re-install that program once I update to 8.1 RTM? Or, are the re-installs associated only with apps downloaded from the store?
I have just built a new computer and Installed Win8. The motherboard, processor, and system drive are all brand new Intel stuff; the media drive is a new Seagate. Programs get up and running just fine, but I have transferred my files over from my old xp machine, and Win Explorer is very slow to access them.
I'll open a folder, and more often than not the thumbs will not be there; I'll then try to open or preview a file and I'll get the green progress bar over the address bar. This will often take up to a minute or more to run, and if I leave it be then the icons will usually appear and the files will then be accessible. If I try to open or preview a file before it's done things lock up on me.
After navigating away from that folder and allowing some time to pass however, the thumbs dissapear again and I am back to square one. sometimes the thumbs will reappear all on their own. this seems to be an issue whether we're talking large files or small, or folders with 100's of files or as few as 8. The very same files are instantly accessible by the new comp from the original locations on my external USB drive and on my xp machine over the network. Once they are copied to the new machine is when things get bogged down. This seems to be the case both on the system drive and the media drive.
Furthermore, right from the very beginning, I've had icons disappearing and reappearing from my start menu apps page.
I have tried the following to resolve the problem:
- I have optimized the folders in question for both the types of media therein, and back to "General Items" again
- I have disabled indexing both on the drives themselves and in the libraries control panel
- I have run a full system virus scan with Bit Defender
- I have contacted Windows support and they have run a scan that showed Windows itself to be working properly
One thing that occures to me is the problem seems to be with the SATA drives and the SATA drives only, but if there's something wrong with the mother board wouldn't my programs have trouble opening too?
Out of the blue today when I opened PSE 11 and then tried to use it to open a file on my Desktop, it went to sleep. Task Manager showed it "not-responding". Rebooting the computer did not work. After a couple of tries, I waited for 2-3 minutes and it then displayed files on the desktop. I switched the location it was searching, which was Desktop to my photo folder, and everything started working normally. Closed and restarted, and it was fine opening files from my Pictures folder. But, when I switched it to Desktop it went to sleep again for 2-3 minutes. At one point it got a message, which I forget exactly, but basically saying it could not find the file it was searching for??
It seems unique to the Desktop location. The Desktop is part of the operating system (Windows 8.1), and on a SSD. The Pictures folder is on my HDDs. I don't recall making any changes to the setup.
Summary of the symptoms:
1. Only is slow with File, Open, or File, Open As, when the location is the Desktop
2. Operating system (8.1) is on a SSD. Normal file folder is on HDD.
3. Same actions when location is Pictures on HDD is normal.
4. Process Explorer does not seem to detect any activity going on during the "sleeping" mode