Win 8.1 On Reboot Like Newly Installed - Empty Metro
Nov 25, 2013
I have an issue with Windows 8.1 Pro x64. I have upgraded from 8. About every 5-6 days after I turn on my laptop, Windows 8 behaves like it was just newly installed. By that I mean that after I login into the system I get a screen with "We're setting things up for you" and messages about installing apps from the store. After that finishes, an empty metro screen is displayed. Then, after I choose to reboot, system starts OK.
This does not happen every reboot, approximately on every fifth/sixth. I find it extremely annoying when I have to wait about 5 minutes just to do another reboot. And what if one day it does not reboot correctly from the empty screen?
i recently lost a computer(mother board failure)but the hard drive is in tact and i can access with a SATA to usb device. have another computer up and running win 8. i am wondering how i find and transfer user specific data for instance i have a typing tutor program my wife and i both use we have different user names and have progressed differently. once i reload applications what do i need to move from the old hard drive to restore those applications to the earlier state with all user data, id, preferences, application progress etc.is this data located in each applications folder or stored in separate locations throughout win 8
I have just put together my third build and I'm running into problems
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard Memory: Patriot Viper 3 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 4GB Dual Superclocked ACX Video Card Case: NZXT H440 (Red/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) CPU Cooler: Kraken x60
A week or so ago I installed windows on the SSD, set everything up. I had some issues with windows detecting the HDD but once I installed all the motherboard drivers, new bios, etc., everything seemed good. Unfortunately I started hitting random BSODs quite frequently, each time a different type. I got frustrated so I re installed windows and did a more patient and methodical install of the drivers and software. Tonight I got around to installing the remaining motherboard drivers, as well as a few of my apps (things like Chrome, Dropbox, Evernote) as well as GPU drivers, Audio drivers, etc.
This problem happens to me right after the installation of Stardock's Start8 or another app called StartIsBack. It could be those 2 apps or it could be something else I don't know.
The problem is, after a reboot, all of a sudden, the icons lose their image and they just become blank white files, if I right click on a file for example to Run As Administrator or anything else, the whole context menu doesn't appear and Explorer just freezes until I force restart
This happened to me in 8 diff. formats / fresh install I finally gave up and just reverted back to Windows 7. Could it be those start menu replacement apps or perhaps some dodgy windows updates?
Where are Metro Apps Installed. I know there is a folder in Program FilesWindowsApps but Are they User related or System Related? Or they are like Preinstalled and get installed on new account creation?
Also I see a lot of folder of the same Apps with different versions. Is it safe to remove older versions (folders)?
I have installed Win 8.1 and juste after Startisback. After that i have installed my application , like office, photoshop etcccc. But none of theses appears in the Metro Modern Gui. someone tell me to right click on the EXE file and use " Add to Metro( Accueil) " but i don't have this option. None of my research on the net give me an answer.
I installed Windows 8 with the program PWBOOT in USB disk drive and some of the apps in the metro Start Screen they didn't installed. Also the Windows store app is missing so I can't download the apps from the Windows 8 store. What should I do to bring em there? I also have a Windows 8 disc. Can I write em without deleting all the third party desktop apps? If so then how?
Is it possible to update the apps I already have installed from store?in windows 8 on store icon was showing the number of updates.in win 8.1 this doesnt work.
Built my pc about a week ago seemed to be working until i started getting constant bsod.
i have an Asrock z87 extreme 3 and a 4670k an r9 280x by sapphire and 2 x 4gb on corsair 8gb low profile ram.
the Bsod's often happen when semi intensive task are happening, watching hd videos playing games etc, and always happens when i restart pc after a shutdown or if it wakes from sleep.
This is an issue for ages. Apparently windows writes zeros by default for all allocated files. Particularly noticable, when downloading with bittorrent, where the app hangs and the hard drive becomes unusable for quite a while. But it's also a problem more generally. Any such allocations will double the wear on HDDs and particularly SSDs, apart from taking twice as much time. I can set windows to don't write zeroes when allocating files?
I have just got windows 8 and I have 220 pictures in 'My pictures' folder. Only 117 are showing. I think i added the rest at later date and for some reason when i access the pictures gallery feature on windows 8 i cannot see the newly added pics.
I recently built my own PC (I5-4670K) and installed Win 8.1 64 Bit OEM Builder. Installation went fast and easy. Updated all my drivers/win updates in the past 2 hours. Windows 8.1 is activated.
When I go to Taskbar and Navigation properties -> navigation menu -> "Show my desktop background on Start " and "Search everywhere instead of just my apps when I search from the Apps view" are BOTH GRAYED OUT.
When I go to Personalization to choose images for my background nothing happens. Not even windows desktop backgrounds or anything in my picture library gets recognized.
Updated to 8.1, created a couple of users accounts - but unable to sign into these accounts. Clicking to sign in, simply shows (a few seconds later) - 'Signing out'. No errors or similar reported and nothing obvious in the Event Log of the Admin user.
Have tried a variety of accounts - with passwords, without, child accounts, etc - same result.
Any accounts existing prior to 8.1 seem to work okay.
Safety Scanner and SFC check found no problems. A bit more testing found that if I create a new Administrator user, then this user can be logged onto and works fine. Whereas the Standard or Child accounts still won't logon. Accounts created using a pre-existing 2nd Administrator user (i.e. pre 8.1) show the same behaviour.
Logged on as Admin1 (my account). Created W-user2 (child user) - unable to logon Created test-user (std user) - unable to logon Created test-21-1 (std user - created 21/10/13 after sfc check) - unable to logon Created Admin3 (admin user) - Logon successful
Logged on as Admin2 (pre-existing 2nd Admin account) Created standard2 (std user) - unable to logon Created child2 (child user) - unable to logon Created Admin4 (admin user) - Logon successful
So, it looks like only new Admin users can logon. A pre-existing Standard user account can still logon (as before).
I'm using Windows 8.1 Pro 64 Bit. If I go to Control Panel/Windows Update/View Update History KB2919442 is shown as installed successfully on the 12 March 2014 "BUT" if I go to Control Panel/Windows Update/Installed Updates there is no KB2919442 listed.
If I download KB2919442 directly from Microsoft and try to install it manually it says "This update is not applicable to your computer"
I'm obviously having no success trying to install KB2919355 as it never shows as available in Windows Update and if I download it manually from Microsoft and try installing manually I get the same error message "This update is not applicable to your computer"
yesterday I noticed that by going to settings / notifications ("Show notifications from these apps") list is empty and no longer has to manage all app notifications on/off why?
When I right click the Recycle Bin and click Empty Recycle Bin, the desktop freezes: the desktop become unclickable; if I click anywhere on the desktop, it just gives me a "ding" sound.
Everything else works fine, like icons on the dock is clickable, I can go to start and open an app etc.
The way I can empty the recycle bin is open the recycle bin and empty it within the folder.
Following this Windows 8.1 refuses to sleep thread I went to look for the task mentioned and I see no tasks have run. It has been this way since day one of this computer and doesn't matter what time period I select (last hour, 24h, 7 days, 30 days).
Why would it show no tasks, when clearly I have some set to run and they do run and complete? Plus there are other tasks that I didn't set that run as well.
My taskbar with toolbars: address, desktop, links etc becomes just empty blue space after PC was idle. nothing on it and I have to restart to be able to get it back again. Also. in that "state" I can choose application from Start screen but it does not open. Just show on that empty taskbar. When I click it, little picture of it pop up above taskbar but it can only be closed. Nothing shows as open on Alt+F4 or in upper left corner, even when I open or better say click on all aps on Start screen. All I pinned on taskbar disappears also.
Recently i noticied that in Disk Managment there are multiple recovery partitions that are stated as 100% free (they are not visible when opening My Computer). (I recently did a system recovery from recovery utility, don't know if it's relevant to my "problem").
Is it expected to have these partitions? And if yes, why they seem to be 100% free?
So I rebooted my computer after a crash, and after logging in the screens were completely black and my mouse & keyboard was unresponsive. I did Crtl + Alt + Del which brought up the correct menu, and after I exited it I was put onto the start menu, which was blank. Just like the login screen and lock screen, the colour and design had been reset (to purple, if it matters). Leaving the start menu presents me with the black desktop again, but the start bar at the bottom is present and after a while the clock, wifi, volume etc. loads in the bottom right as well as a User Profile Service notification telling me I've been "signed in with the default profile for the system". There are no pinned apps either, although FileZilla Server loads up after a minute and that is on the start bar now. Also, immediately after leaving the start menu, a "Location is not available" dialogue box comes up with the error message:
C:Windowssystem32configsystemprofileDesktop refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on this computer or on a network. Check to make sure that the disk is properly inserted, or that you are connected to the Internet or your network, then try again. If it still cannot be located, the information might have been moved to a different location.
When I click OK on that, the Recycle Bin appears on my desktop. Opening the recycle bin displays the same message as before, and it does have all of the recycled files and folders inside. From here I can navigate through my folders, although the libraries option on the left side is empty (it normally has my documents, videos, user folder etc.). If I navigate to D:UsersAdministrator, my desktop folder is there with everything inside. I can also type Google (or presumably anything after http://) into the explorer bar which opens up Google Chrome, as well as open cmd and Control Panel by typing each one in. Navigating to C:Windowssystem32configsystemprofile shows that Desktop isn't actually present any more.
I've tried using both elevated cmd (net user /add Username) and control panel to create a new user, but the control panel button "Add or remove user accounts" button is unresponsive, and although cmd gives me a successful operation message (and tells me the account already exists if I do the same command again), it doesn't show up on the logon screen. I've tried making the user through cmd while logged in to administrator, using the Advanced Startup Options command prompt (the one that uses X:) and using safe mode with command prompt. The right-corner-menu > Settings > Change PC Settings button is unresponsive. I can't use the built-in administrator account because after I similar occurrence before, I've been using the built-in admin, which is the one that is now broken. None of my older accounts show up, either.
Also, after a few restarts and many attempted fixes (mainly automatic repair etc.), it now plays the whole patronising "We're getting your PC ready" video whenever I try to log in, and then it displays the start menu and bar (so I don't need to do the Crtl + Alt + Del step).
I have an external hard and the folders in it are shown empty while they are full, but the folder inside them are shown correctly. I attached 2 images :
Is it possible that virus cause this problem? It's actually impossible cause I have KIS2013 and it is updated.
Over the years I've tried to save all my documents. This means that they have been copied from folder to folder and computer to computer (whatever was before Windows 95) probably mostly through external storage. However, some of these were saved directly to the 2nd internal hard drive D: of Windows 8 may be included, but I'm not certain.
I believe all of the folders are present, most of which are identified by date. However, many of the folders are completely empty. I cannot see a pattern as to which folders. This seems to involve mostly older folders, (and this may mean that it is more likely that they have been through a USB device) but not all of the older folders are empty. More recent ones are also empty. Otherwise, I cannot identify any specific documents, only that large numbers of folders are empty.
since installing I now have a notification in the systray saying that " Files are up to date, last updated xxx minutes ago When I click on that notification icon, it takes me to a Sky drive folder, and within it is a documents, favorites, public, and shared favorites folders. When I double click those folders, there are no files within them.I do not have Skydrive set to upload, or sync, any files. So then should I be getting these notifications? Why would it show updating empty folders when Sky drive is not enabled? Is there a setting somewhere I should change.
I'm getting this problem since like 2 days ago. I'm trying to open my Music folder on my desktop or my whole D drive (with tons of items on it like game installations, music, pictures etc.) but the window that opens is empty and writes in it "This folder is empty". The address bar keeps loading and if I leave it loading (green bar filling), it stops right before the end and the window freezes. When I then click on the window a few times, the whole explorer.exe crashes and restarts, closing the window...
I can't acces the documents on my D drive. When I search for anything on the drive, it finds it and I can use it (pictures open, songs play). So the files are actually there but just aren't loading. I've made sure that the files are not hidden and I've already scanned for malware.
Whenever I go to empty my recycle bin, my external seagate spins up. I looked at the properties and the drive is there listed as primary. I change it to "C" and it eventually defaults back to the external. why is this happening and how can I fix it permanently
So, I did a refresh of Windows 8 which created Windows.old. I could later delete all the folders in it but for a few. Although I deleted all the files, I ended up with a few folders in Windows.old. I am unable to delete it now and it shows "Error 0x80070091: The directory is not empty."
I have tried 10's of solution available on internet and on your website. Nothing works
Note: I am able to change the location, name of the folder and the sub folders. The only exception is happening when I cut and paste it in an external drive, it just copies whereas if I paste it back in any other folder, it cuts and pastes!
Disk management won't allow me to extend empty 46GB volume. The windows disk management will not allow me to delete any partitions. Do I need to do an Fdisk ? or use a third party program to do this ?
Before I do this I must create a windows setup disk because I do not have one at the moment , all I have is a Dell usb Restore. would be good if there was a video clip of how to delete the partition.
