Windows 7 hanging on Welcome screen

Hi Everyone,

As of last night, when i log on to windows 7 (put in my password), the 'welcome' screen comes up (which normally lasts two seconds) and hangs. I added no new software of or hardware recently.

I did a little bit of googling on my phone last night to see about a solution - and i tried what appears to be the most common solutions - i.e press f8 at startup, use the various options - startup repair, System restore (didn't use system image recovery) - but it still won't work. It also hangs even if i try going in by Safe Mode.

I really can't see what else i can try - because obviously if i can't get into windows, the options are limited.

I don't have my genuine Windows 7 installation disks with me, i'm getting them sent to me in the next couple of days.

Is there anything else i can try? I have a 'feeling' that its something to do with my profile that makes it hang when i log in. Unfortunately there is only one profile set up.

Would anybody have any suggestions for me? Or what options i have?

Many thanks

Martin

 

Hi,

Make sure you have no USB devices attached and no cards in any memory slots as these can cause hangs on occasion.

Can you get to a command prompt from the F8 options?

 

Thanks for the response Sach2.

While i'm not familiar on what to do with the Command Prompt F8 option, however i tried it last night (i tried pretty much all the options), and i didn't get anywhere. I can't remember if that option asked for my password and it hung at that stage (like normal) or it hung at different moment. But i know it hung!

Yep, i have everything detached from it - no USBs, not even the speakers! While i have no problem reinstalling windows 7 (although it is a hassle, driver etc etc), i do not want to lose all my files - i do have important stuff backed up, but not my all my music and none of my videos). But primarily i would just love to know whats wrong, and get into my profile at least once, even if i was to ultimately reinstall!

 

Well, a progress report for the sake of completion.

It was certainly an error in the profile - it must have been corrupted. This made it difficult to manage as there was only one profile on the computer.

Anyway, went through the recovery options again, and was able to system restore to an earlier time. That said, it told me it couldn't restore to an earlier time, but on the final attempt it did (but still said it didn't).

Anyway, when it booted up and i logged on - and it said 'preparing desktop' and when it did that, i got an info message saying that it was a temp profile and that my files were inaccessible, and that any settings i changed in this profile will not be save as it will be deleted when i log off. It said, to get back into my old profile, reboot and try logging on again. I did. Numerous times, and same thing happened. However, at last at this stage i was able to create a new user profile and i was able to access the files associated with my old account. So in short, i've transferred all my files into the new account and tweaked the settings to my liking. I intend on deleting my old account as it appears to be hopelessly corrupt without much chance of recovery.

At least i'm back up and running - just thought i'd finalise this thread on what happened next, in case it comes up in a search or whatever.

Thanks

 

Thanks for the progress report. I'm glad you got things sorted.

I had looked around but didn't find much of any use. I was hoping that if you got the install discs that you might be able to get to the command prompt from there and try to create a new user.

It looks like you got lucky but you certainly put a lot of work into it as well. Good job!