Workgroup Snafu

I obliviously goofed at entering dialog for the initial stages of a clean install.

Where it necessitates user's defining a Workgroup, despite many not networking, with no hover help or any help for that matter, when W's default presumes the user is in a network (or so this seems to me) entering a Workgroup of "PUBLIC", surely is causing the OS's 700+ Workgroup events per day (snips from the viewer's log if even needed, listed below.

I could whine that MS lacks afforded user friendliness at a critical point of build installs, where we're req'd to enter a Workgroup despite not networking, as/but the matter's led to one fine little mess.

Three weeks since the clean install, seemingly all was fine until explorer began near constant crashes. And what with MS's irritating Windows Update, which I obviously doesn't disable when 'we' try that in the so in Services list, now aside from it's phoning home (Wi-Fi bring on or not), seems it's taking revenge on my subbing it, by producing a bogus desktop notice.

What really got my attention was in that I'm the only acct (an Administrator acct) and have disabled the default guest acct, small wonder why I got even more concerned when finding that it seems I don't have those privileges that I thought I did, ie; elevated commands fail in that it the resulting pathway is not system32. plus the workaround again won't elevate a command window.

And the desktop's overlaid banner ("Windows 7 Build 7601" and "This version of Windows is not genuine") is obviously resulting from the existence of conflicts created when Workgroup, user account, WU all try working together.

I'm hopeful that rather than virus or mal-ware, all this is just due to my error and MS's utilities not working and playing so well between themselves.

No idea how much I'd appreciate some shared wisdom here.

Best regards and happ-e-trails as...

urrguru

Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy 5321 None A previous instance of the Group Policy Client Service has been detected. Parameter: 73df5073-ec58-405e-9941-e1015d210c12
Information 3/19/2017 10:00:49 PM Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy 5320 None Initializing service instance state to detect previous instances of the service.
Information 3/19/2017 10:00:49 PM Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy 5320 None Initializing and reading current service configuration for the Group Policy Client service.
Information 3/19/2017 10:00:49 PM Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy 5320 None The Group Policy Client service is currently configured as a shared service.
Information 3/19/2017 9:57:47 PM Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy 5325 None Group Policy received Preshutdown notification from Service Control Manager.
Information 3/19/2017 9:54:36 PM Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy 5321 None A previous instance of the Group Policy Client Service has been detected. Parameter: 6f010985-fa00-43f8-b71e-26413840a5d3
Information 3/19/2017 9:54:36 PM Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy 5320 None Initializing service instance state to detect previous instances of the service.
Information 3/19/2017 9:54:36 PM Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy 5320 None Initializing and reading current service configuration for the Group Policy Client service.
Information 3/19/2017 9:54:36 PM Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy 5320 None The Group Policy Client service is currently configured as a shared service.

 

In User Accounts, I deleted all accounts but my own one.

In C:\Users, I deleted the Workgroup account file folder.

In Networking & Sharing Center, I selected connect or disconnect, disco'd Workgroup, then only was I able to dump Workgroup and properly appoint 'networking' as Public.

Still have Windows Explorer crashing routinely, yet no longer seeing MS's 'Windows is not genuine' desktop banner overlays, and at least no longer seeing some 9000 event viewer events for Group Policies.

Guessing that something else's a foot within Windows, ie; causing explorer to crash, plus Windows Update trouble-shooter oddly reports 'WU's file are missing or corrupt' says it can't fix it, nor does SFC find any files of issue.

Will report back if and when I find resolution.