Anomalous startup behavior

[Bill's News]

A friend has just dropped off his computer for me to either find
his problem or reinstall xp.

The situation is that, after power on the user selections (there
are 4 users of this machine) appear in reasonable time.
However, when selecting a user it takes about 7 minutes (no
sweep second on my wall clock), during which time only an empty
desktop shows, before the application icons appear on the desk
top. If we press Ctrl-Alt-Del immediately, the Task manager
appears about 20 seconds or so later with virtually no programs
running (about 10 MS modules) none of which is consuming any CPU
cycles. Only Sys-idle is counting cycles. Just about when the
7 minutes expires, Task Manager shows the rest of the apps,
etc., loading and the desk top icons appear.

Alternatively, if I start the system and let it sit at the user
choice screen for 7 minutes, when I click on a user, that
desktop appears almost immediately with all app icons in place.

I've never seen this sort of behavior before.

Although I've not connected the PC to my router as yet, my
friend says this is the behavior whether or not he has internet
access available.

I'm going to spend up to 4 hours poking at this tomorrow morning
and was wondering if any who might be here have encountered this
before and have a clue I might pursue?

Many thanks for your consideration.

 

[Curt Christianson]

I would start by doing a check for "malware". Here are some guidelines:

Malware Removal
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

THE PARASITE FIGHT
Finding, Removing & Protecting Yourself From Scumware
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm

Richard Harper's Guide to Cleaning Pests
http://rgharper.mvps.org/cleanit.htm

--
HTH,
Curt

Windows Support Center
www.aumha.org
Practically Nerded,...
http://dundats.mvps.org/Index.htm

|A friend has just dropped off his computer for me to either find
| his problem or reinstall xp.
|
| The situation is that, after power on the user selections (there
| are 4 users of this machine) appear in reasonable time.
| However, when selecting a user it takes about 7 minutes (no
| sweep second on my wall clock), during which time only an empty
| desktop shows, before the application icons appear on the desk
| top. If we press Ctrl-Alt-Del immediately, the Task manager
| appears about 20 seconds or so later with virtually no programs
| running (about 10 MS modules) none of which is consuming any CPU
| cycles. Only Sys-idle is counting cycles. Just about when the
| 7 minutes expires, Task Manager shows the rest of the apps,
| etc., loading and the desk top icons appear.
|
| Alternatively, if I start the system and let it sit at the user
| choice screen for 7 minutes, when I click on a user, that
| desktop appears almost immediately with all app icons in place.
|
| I've never seen this sort of behavior before.
|
| Although I've not connected the PC to my router as yet, my
| friend says this is the behavior whether or not he has internet
| access available.
|
| I'm going to spend up to 4 hours poking at this tomorrow morning
| and was wondering if any who might be here have encountered this
| before and have a clue I might pursue?
|
| Many thanks for your consideration.
|
|

 

[Bill's News]

I would start by doing a check for "malware". Here are some
guidelines:

Malware Removal
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

THE PARASITE FIGHT
Finding, Removing & Protecting Yourself From Scumware
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm

Richard Harper's Guide to Cleaning Pests
http://rgharper.mvps.org/cleanit.htm

--
HTH,
Curt

Windows Support Center
www.aumha.org
Practically Nerded,...
http://dundats.mvps.org/Index.htm

|A friend has just dropped off his computer for me to either
find
| his problem or reinstall xp.
|
| The situation is that, after power on the user selections
(there
| are 4 users of this machine) appear in reasonable time.
| However, when selecting a user it takes about 7 minutes (no
| sweep second on my wall clock), during which time only an
empty
| desktop shows, before the application icons appear on the
desk
| top. If we press Ctrl-Alt-Del immediately, the Task manager
| appears about 20 seconds or so later with virtually no
programs
| running (about 10 MS modules) none of which is consuming any
CPU
| cycles. Only Sys-idle is counting cycles. Just about when
the
| 7 minutes expires, Task Manager shows the rest of the apps,
| etc., loading and the desk top icons appear.
|
| Alternatively, if I start the system and let it sit at the
user
| choice screen for 7 minutes, when I click on a user, that
| desktop appears almost immediately with all app icons in
place.
|
| I've never seen this sort of behavior before.
|
| Although I've not connected the PC to my router as yet, my
| friend says this is the behavior whether or not he has
internet
| access available.
|
| I'm going to spend up to 4 hours poking at this tomorrow
morning
| and was wondering if any who might be here have encountered
this
| before and have a clue I might pursue?
|
| Many thanks for your consideration.
|
|

Thanks Curt. What I did, this AM, before coming here was:

using MSCONFIG disable all services.
Boot then worked perfectly.

I then enabled 10 MS ONLY services at a time until the boot
misbehaved. I was convinced it was an MS service because Task
Manager, when it appeared, listed nothing but a smattering of MS
services during the timeout.

Among the last ten, I then did 5 and subsequently one at a time
until pinpointing
"Shell Hardware detection" as the culprit.

This leads me to conclude that a UPnP device, or its driver, is
malfunctioning and that PnP services have an inordinate time out
when this occurs. I tried booting with a boot log but I find no
text file containing the word "boot" created in the past 20
minutes. So, if you happen to know where MS stores the boot log
and how it's named, that would be immensely helpful.

I suspect that it's a wireless device, which he did not bring
along, as one is listed as being disconnected. I'll disable it
or remove it, if necessary, to check that out.

All that inhibiting "Shell Hardware detection" from the start up
activity accomplishes is to the shift the 7 minute timeout from
boot time to after the desktop appears - when some other service
needs i/o validation. I'm immediately able to interact with
MSConfig, because it launches automatically when used to reboot.
But little else will respond for about 7 minutes after the icon
filled desktop appears.

I'll report back with more, and hopefully the final answer, in
case any others encounter this.

 

[Bill's News]

Thanks Curt. What I did, this AM, before coming here was:

using MSCONFIG disable all services.
Boot then worked perfectly.

I then enabled 10 MS ONLY services at a time until the boot
misbehaved. I was convinced it was an MS service because Task
Manager, when it appeared, listed nothing but a smattering of
MS services during the timeout.

Among the last ten, I then did 5 and subsequently one at a
time until pinpointing
"Shell Hardware detection" as the culprit.

This leads me to conclude that a UPnP device, or its driver,
is malfunctioning and that PnP services have an inordinate
time out when this occurs. I tried booting with a boot log
but I find no text file containing the word "boot" created in
the past 20 minutes. So, if you happen to know where MS
stores the boot log and how it's named, that would be
immensely helpful.

I suspect that it's a wireless device, which he did not bring
along, as one is listed as being disconnected. I'll disable
it or remove it, if necessary, to check that out.

All that inhibiting "Shell Hardware detection" from the start
up activity accomplishes is to the shift the 7 minute timeout
from boot time to after the desktop appears - when some other
service needs i/o validation. I'm immediately able to
interact with MSConfig, because it launches automatically when
used to reboot. But little else will respond for about 7
minutes after the icon filled desktop appears.

I'll report back with more, and hopefully the final answer, in
case any others encounter this.

No idea how the problem arose but it was at-the-very-least the
networking software (basic MS stuff, on-mobo gigabit NAC, and
driver). Unable to obtain net address, after the delay
mentioned earlier.

Tried a DELL restore disc "repair" op first. What a hilarious
adventure. After about 50 minutes of advertising - during which
only a small portion of time was devoted to what seemed to be
the restore op? - and a final reboot, the system quickly
displayed the original 4 user's access icons. Selecting one
brings up a message, paraphrasing here, that the OS needs to be
activated before I can log on. No other indication nor ability
to determine that the network adapter software was still not
working. Safe mode suffered the same silliness.

Doing a full install (repartitioned and reformatted the HDD)
solved the problem forthwith.

Interestingly, the same codes were entered for both restore and
full install - why one needed activation and the other did not
is only slightly more confounding than the cause of the problem
which is now solved.