The desktop PC starts OK but clicking on screen icons or most items in the start menu gets no response. With some digging I can probably find a system backup but maybe ther solution is simpler, any suggestions?
Mouse connector loose?
First thing to do is leave it on for a while and see if anything changes. It could just be Windows doing a massive update. I have known it take an hour before some older unused for ages PCs become responsive
- especially if their hard disk is on the verge of failing.
Ctrl-Alt_Del will let you look at processes to see which one(s) are hogging the CPU. Do any of the icons work? If so which ones?
Can you get to the System control panel? Which version of 'Doze?
It's a wireless mouse which seems to be moving the pointer around OK and in the start menu I can click on control panel and get to "Programs an Features".
Leaving it on for a while in the hope of it sorting itself out is not too demanding. I'll try that first.
This PC: No. Control Panel: Yes.
Windows 10.
Yes, I've had situations in the past where i've though a windowns installation was broken only to come back later and normality restored.
Battery
+1 It's absolutely normal for a long-time-off Windows machine to be slow on first boot, as it has a ton of updates to install and that thrashes the CPU, disc, fans, etc. After about 20 minutes (on a recent machine) it's back to normal, although it may pester you to reboot and then spend a while installing the updates.
It's one thing that makes Windows very annoying to use on an intermittent basis, because you're typically turning it for one quick job, but that job is never quick.
Theo
You have 5 months of Microsoft updates happening in the background. Just leave your PC on for half a day and let M$ sort it out.
I found that everything runs super slow if there is a (major) download/install happening
It can make it very annoying when used on a regular basis. Where I used to work it was not uncommon to come in some mornings and have to wait
30+ minutes for the PC to become fast enough to be usable for normal work. There is only so much coffee that you can drink whilst waiting and very frustrating when working to a tight deadline.
Windows has a setting where it can install updates during the night[*]. I'd expect any corporate IT shop to set that up so day to day work isn't affected. Doesn't help those without any IT support I suppose.
Theo
[*] it can now do so when the grid CO2 emissions are lowest, so taking advantage of excess renewable powerOn the rare occasions I use my laptop - mostly holidays - I always turn it on the day before and just leave it.
Why does he have *any* updates happening in the background? It doesn't sound as if he asked for them.
Windows doesn't ask to install updates, it just does it. You can defer the reboot needed to install major updates, but many updates can download and install without rebooting, and they do. Especially if the system is months out of date.
Theo
Some windows updates take a couple of hours on my 2011 AMD with Win 10/32 Pro and 4Gig of ram.
Much of the time seems to be with disk activity at 100%
If you change something to indicate that you are on a dialup (metered) connection on the windows update page, then it will not do anything behind your back (supposedly).
Not sure if this also applies to Edge updates which are the ones that catch me out because the PC is almost unusable until they have been installed.
And you can't turn this off?
I ask because it doesn't seem to happen in my Win10 VM, which I run about once a month for software testing. I usually do my testing, then find the Update Manager or whatever it's called, and do the updates before turning the VM off. Hmmm, actually, thinking about it, of course I'm not doing a virtual power-up on the VM, just restoring its state.
If you have slow storage, especially spinning HDD, it makes a huge difference to the length of time needed to install updates.
Theo
Dead button. I've had several end up flakey on the left click after a year or so. First test is to plug in another mouse - a cheapo wired mouse is peanuts.
Not officially, unless you're on the Enterprise licence (when you can access the 'stable' LTSB stream)
Unofficially, declaring your connection to be 'metered' will stop it doing it automatically. But that may have undesirable side effects, and you'd need to do it for every wifi SSID etc.
If you're restoring the VM it won't be in 'freshly booted' state that starts the process. Even if freshly booted, if you get in quickly enough, it may not have time to download anything before you shut it off again, and that would cause it to abort the process and try again next time.
Theo
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