Little bit of a lazy-web plea this.
My Windows install has a problem whereby if I log in too quickly, most of my background applications like Konfabulator don’t load properly and Windows refuses to launch any applications (Firefox, Thunderbird, iTunes or Windows Explorer).
Invoking a shut down causes everything to suddenly spring into life (and then immediately quit and shut down of course) so my conclusion is that there’s a rogue process doing something crap. It hasn’t crashed, some limited interaction is still possible. Invoked processes are just being queued up behind something else. I think.
Now, by ‘log in too quickly’ I’m referring to the time taken between the Welcome Screen appearing, me typing my password and the desktop appearing. I’ve found that if I let Windows sit on the Welcome Screen about 30 seconds and then log in the problem tends not to occur. But, if it does freeze up while loading it seems to last indefinitely (e.g. not the same 30 seconds).
So, apart from a brief expression of despair that Microsoft have produced an Operating System that can be crippled by unknown applications in this manner, I’m looking for some tips on how to track down my rogue process and fix it/kill it forever.
Thanks very much.
Ben is a 24 year old Web Developer from Cambridge and is a computing graduate of the University of Manchester.