Vista unusable. Crashes after each login.

[JChronakis]

Hello,

Last night upgraded from XP Professional to Vista Ultimate. The
upgrade procedure went smoothly, but from the first time I tried to
login, vista crashed with a blue screen and an unspecific error of
something like 0x0..08EC (0x0....) and no information about a driver
or file.

I tried to login from another account, and had exactly the same
behavior. Safe mode has exactly the same result. The exact moment of
crash is somewhere between login and the the task bar and icons become
visible.

I managed to boot on safe mode with command prompt, and made some
interesting observations. I can start almost any program I like from
the command prompt without any problem. I can even play avi files and
start internet explorer. But whenever I try to load "explorer.exe" the
system crashes while loading the task bar and rendering the desktop
icons.

I thought that it must be some program that starts when desktop is
loaded, so I used msconfig.exe to remove all the startup programs and
regedit to delete programs under ...CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/
CurrentVersion/Run and RunOnce. Some of the programs kept reappearing
so I renamed the actual executables on the file system.

None of the above actions made any difference. I am almost sure that
it is a program that loads on startup, but I do not know how to
diagnose the problem.

Do you have any suggestions. I really really want to avoid a clean
installation.

Thanks

 

[Guest]

Last night upgraded from XP Professional to Vista Ultimate.
Do you have any suggestions. I really really want to avoid a clean
installation.

perform a clean installation and you'll have the best of Vista

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On 28 Mar 2007 05:59:41 -0700, "(e-mail address removed)"

Last night upgraded from XP Professional to Vista Ultimate. The
upgrade procedure went smoothly, but from the first time I tried to
login, vista crashed with a blue screen and an unspecific error of
something like 0x0..08EC (0x0....) and no information about a driver

I tried to login from another account, and had exactly the same

OK... so we'd think it's more HKLM than HK(C)U...

Safe mode has exactly the same result.

OK... that rules out most driver and startup item issues.

I managed to boot on safe mode with command prompt, and made some
interesting observations. I can start almost any program I like from
the command prompt without any problem. I can even play avi files and
start internet explorer. But whenever I try to load "explorer.exe" the
system crashes while loading the task bar and rendering the desktop
icons.

Bingo! Looks like a shell integration.

I thought that it must be some program that starts when desktop is
loaded, so I used msconfig.exe to remove all the startup programs and
regedit to delete programs under ...CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/
CurrentVersion/Run and RunOnce. Some of the programs kept reappearing
so I renamed the actual executables on the file system.

MSConfig handles only some of the (too) many possible integration
points, and the pattern you describe points away from the ones that
MSConfig can manage. Instead, I'd use Norsoft's Shell Extension
Viewer (from www.nirsoft.net) to reversibly disable 3rd-party shell
integrations that kick in when Explorer displays stuff.

I suspect your installation process has inherited something from the
original XP installation that is not OK in Vista.

Do you have any suggestions. I really really want to avoid a clean
installation.

As above. I'd also look in Add/Remove Programs (if you can access
that - there may be Explorer-independent ways) for things that look as
if they operate too close to the OS for comfort, and yet aren't
"drivers". Possible culprits include:
- malware (ahem, may not show up in Add/Remove)
- antivirus
- namespace extensions e.g. bluetooth or other devices
- file indexers, thumbnailers, camera photo transfer software etc.
- some archivers, if they get "too close" to the shell

HTH...

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Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!