Computer hangs at initial startup!

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domyue

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Hi there, my PC happens to hang occasionally at startup: when it displays "windows is starting..."

It's been doing it for the past 3-4 days. The only change I made to the PC in this time was installing office publisher.....

Any ideas how to remedy this??

Thanks very much!
 
What happened when you uninstalled Publisher?
How much memory do you have installed?
Please advise us as to your configuration, antivirus, antispyware, and Windows Service Pack. Perhaps we can come up with some ideas.
 
Once you get into Windows, go to Start - Run - Type: msconfig (hit Enter) - Choose the boot.ini tab and select the checkbox relating to /SOS.

Reboot and note if it hangs on a particular system file.

Post back and we'll go from there.
 
I tried that /SOS thing, and it didn't stop at any file...i guess it must have been one of the successful boots then.

If it WERE to have a problem at "windows is starting...", how would it present itself when the /SOS option is selected??
Because i didn't see any file list or progress bar, etc when it was starting up so what did you mean when you previously said, "...hangs on a particular system file"??

OS XP home SP2
3.4ghz, 1Gb RAM, ATI 9600, MSI 6567
Avast! AV, Comodo FW, Spybot (not started at bootup)
Medium expertise at computery things =D
 
Did you see a list of system files during reboot? You should have. Usually ends on a file called mup.sys
If it stopped or hung before that file appeared, we could pin-point a corrupt system file.

If you think it's hardware, download Burn-In-Test (free trial), install it and run it a couple of times. It will touch on all major hardware in your PC. Note if it fails on a particular phase (RAM, Video, HDD, etc).

Get it free here: http://www.passmark.com/download/index.htm
 
Who me? No I'm not.

I'm just a big fan of this product and I recommend it to those who think they have hardware issues.

Easier than finding a particular program for each piece of hardware ... and it's free! Well, fo 30 days anyway.
 
Hi guys, it didn't seem to work. The /SOS option never displayed a whole set of files at all. It just displayed what OS i was on and also checked my disks...
And it still crashed at start up (the nice blue screen JUST before you see your users listed at logon screen).

My hardware seems to be fine since I didn't touch it before this happened...guess it could be spontaneous.

PS: I also uninstalled publisher, the installing of which was about the time i noticed the hangs.
 
/SOS displays your OS's system files during boot. Same as when you boot into Safe Mode. You must see it ... you simply must!

If your PC is crashing before or thereabouts to the login screen, chances are it's a driver or a system file. Publisher hasn't even come into the equasion at this stage (it will when you login and your start-up's load). System files and drivers are the only things loaded by that stage, so your problem (in theory) lies there.
 
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