Control Panel Freeze

[Johann]

After reinstalling XP Home on my desktop home server after a Blue Screen of
Death crash and after installing all XP updates, I now find that the first
time after a reboot that I click on Control Panel, it starts to load then
freezes. I can "get out of gaol" by CTRL-ALT-DEL and closing down control
panel. On subsequent occasions I go into Control Panel it functions OK. The
automatic report to Microsoft refers to files that don't exist. KB Article
843551 recommends a hotfix which I have had e-mailed to me but it does not
appear to do anything, and the instructions for what to do with it are
incredibly badly worded. This bug is "only" an inconvenience but it is
driving me up the wall. Can anything be done to fix it ?

 

[Iceman]

After reinstalling XP Home on my desktop home server after a Blue Screen of
Death crash and after installing all XP updates, I now find that the first
time after a reboot that I click on Control Panel, it starts to load then
freezes. I can "get out of gaol" by CTRL-ALT-DEL and closing down control
panel. On subsequent occasions I go into Control Panel it functions OK. The
automatic report to Microsoft refers to files that don't exist. KB Article
843551 recommends a hotfix which I have had e-mailed to me but it does not
appear to do anything, and the instructions for what to do with it are
incredibly badly worded. This bug is "only" an inconvenience but it is
driving me up the wall. Can anything be done to fix it ?

You can try a defrag, virus check and scan for malware with progs like
Ad-Aware and SpyBot.

If there are other appliances than the generic Windows ones listed in your
Control Panel, this may result in a slowdown. QuickTime is one often
mentioned. Extra programs in the Control Panel can be removed using Windows
Tweak UI.

 

[Jose]

After reinstalling XP Home on my desktop home server after a Blue Screen of
Death crash and after installing all XP updates, I now find that the first
time after a reboot that I click on Control Panel, it starts to load then
freezes. I can "get out of gaol" by CTRL-ALT-DEL and closing down control
panel. On subsequent occasions I go into Control Panel it functions OK. The
automatic report to Microsoft refers  to files that don't exist. KB Article
843551 recommends a hotfix which I have had e-mailed to me but it does not
appear to do anything, and the instructions for what to do with it are
incredibly badly worded. This bug is "only" an inconvenience but it is
driving me up the wall. Can anything be done to fix it ?

You will never hear from Microsoft, don't waste your time. It is a
nice thought though. You are still waiting,right?

Starts to load? What does that mean? How far does it get? Can you
choose a CP option or not?

Since you just rebuilt, please download Malwarebytes free AV
program,update the database it has and do a complete scan. It doesn't
matter what else you are using. If you are not using this, try it.

Clear your Windows Event Viewer logs. Reboot. Make it fail. Check
the event logs for clues at the time of your failure.

There is an option to silently copy the displayed event to the
clipboard by clicking the button under the up/down arrow buttons.
Paste the relevant events here. Not every event. Maybe there are
none of interest.

Lessee, control panel selections are optional arguments to the program
called control.exe. Let's try it from some other method.

The optional arguments are .cpl files (for our example) and all of
these files are in the \windows\system32 folder.

If you go to Start, Run type cmd <enter> you end up at a command
prompt or a DOS window. Change directories to the \windows\system32
folder.

If you then try to run control.exe by typing control <enter> and wait,
you should see all your control panel options.
The control executable is in your path so you can really run it from
anywhere.

Now try to run one of the CPL extensions like:

control access.cpl <enter>

That should bring up your Accessibility control panel options. Try
other .cpl files. If you look at all the .cpl files, find the one you
think is the one you want to run that is hanging and try it.

I guess you will have to reboot a lot, but I want to know if it works
from a command prompt (DOS window) after a reboot or is it only a
problem from the Start menu?

Please report any anomalies.

Am I being to basic for you?

 

[Jose]

After reinstalling XP Home on my desktop home server after a Blue Screen of
Death crash and after installing all XP updates, I now find that the first
time after a reboot that I click on Control Panel, it starts to load then
freezes. I can "get out of gaol" by CTRL-ALT-DEL and closing down control
panel. On subsequent occasions I go into Control Panel it functions OK. The
automatic report to Microsoft refers  to files that don't exist. KB Article
843551 recommends a hotfix which I have had e-mailed to me but it does not
appear to do anything, and the instructions for what to do with it are
incredibly badly worded. This bug is "only" an inconvenience but it is
driving me up the wall. Can anything be done to fix it ?

"get out of gaol" - I just now go it...