Seeing past the first 'splash' screen

J

Jim

When a PC boots, there's some BIOS stuff going on, which is shown with very
DOS-like annotation on the screen. Then Windows starts, which brings up an
initial Windows-logo screen that appears to be a default 640 x 480 dispaly.
This is the first presentation of the Windows logo and has the three little
blue marbles cycling left-to-right in a horizontal window as more things
happen in the background.

It is at this point that my computer sometimes stalls and 'hangs.' Powering
it off and back on again always fixes things with no problem; Windows loads
on the second attempt and never gives a warning that anything untoward
happened the first time.

I seem to recall hearing once that the initial Windows logo screen could be
bypassed so that the program loading procedure could be observed on the
screen as sort of a continuation of the initial BIOS loading text having to
do with memory, etc. Is this true and, if so, would this perhaps show where
my system is stalling?
 
J

Jim

Thanks, Randem,

That raises a couple of questions: 1) What's the Event Viewer; 2) How
do you turn on the Boot Log and then how do you read it? Google, here I
come...
 
R

Randem

Event Viewer - Start-Control Panel->Administrative Tools

Boot Logging - Start->Run type in msconfig then make the appropiate check
marks.

Post results. The boot log will show you what gets loaded and the order that
it gets loaded. If there is anything strange you may see it here.

--
Randem Systems
Your Installation Specialist
The Top Inno Setup Script Generator
http://www.randem.com/innoscript.html
http://www.rndem.com/installerproblems.html
http://www.randem.com/vistainstalls.html
http://www.financialtrainingservices.org
 
J

Jim

Okay, I have Boot Logging turned on; where do I see the results after
starting next time, and will the results from an unsuccessful start be saved
if the machine has to be forced-shutdown and then restarted?
 
R

Randem

Boot logging will be saved to a file named bootlog.txt in the root folder or
ntbtlog.txt in the Windows folder. After booting and loging taking place I
woul dboot from a CD to preserver the bootlog state then read the boot log
from there (or copy it somewhere else).

--
Randem Systems
Your Installation Specialist
The Top Inno Setup Script Generator
http://www.randem.com/innoscript.html
http://www.rndem.com/installerproblems.html
http://www.randem.com/vistainstalls.html
http://www.financialtrainingservices.org
 

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