All as maybe, but we have to assume this machine was in working order and if some things do open as he says, than this loading is unlikely to be the issue. Until we know if the keyboard short cuts work, its hard to say what else might be going on as wireless meeces use the USB port and a dongle and a driver. If you have a direct plug in mouse and keyboard to start off with, then see what happens before anything else happens, then try taking out the network plug etc. Brian
To see what is happening type Check for updates into the search box on the taskbar. This is likely to be painfully slow.
Ctrl/Alt/Del will bring up a list from which you can select Task Manager. If you click on CPU at the top of the column it will change the order to show which processes are using the most resources. These are just 'peace of mind' actions to show that things are happening in the background & with time the PC or laptop will become usable. This may need several reboots with updates happening in between, so whilst the machine may be unusable, keeping an eye out for the Reboot button, which often needs user input, can save you wondering why nothing is happening.
While that is true for internet browsing, I'm not sure that it is true of using Windows itself. Earlier versions had Internet Explorer deeply embeded into the GUI, which could not function without it (even if it did not appear to be installed, most of it was). I don't know if Edge is embedded in the same way.
On my somewhat low powered laptop, that was only used very occasionally, the checking of the system for update requirements and downloading/installing updates made the machine pretty well totally unusable for 30 minutes or more at a time.
Nothing actually stopped working, but the time lags were so long, that it appeared to. The problem was totally resolved by increasing the RAM (so that less paging was required) and replacing the hard-disk with an SSD. Previously, task-manager would show the hard-disk being used at
100% of its performance, throught the period of unusability. The machine became usable when the hard-disk activity dropped.
There is more than one MSEdge executable running on Windows 10/11.
formatting link
But that only gets triggered if something needs it.
On Windows 11, the Widgets option will start those webview2 tasks.
And this is precisely the concept in Windows 7 days, that got Widgets there banned, as they were considered a security risk. The one difference being, with Internet Explorer gone, there is nothing offering ActiveX as an attack surface any more. Just HTML/JS attack surfaces.
The default recently has been to automatically install updates. You can switch it to only install them with permission, but they still download automatically. You have to change your network settings to "metered connection" to stop it from downloading them.
With older versions of Windows, you had several choices:
- don't download or install updates unless I give permission
- download, but don't install unless I give permission
- download and install without needing my permission
I forget which of those was the default action, because the first thing I did with any Windows PC was select the first option.
Modern versions of Windows seem to allow you to defer download or installation, but only for a limited period of time. Eventually (so I've heard) Windows will overrule you and forcibly install an update.
A distinction is made between minor updates (potentially every week or so) and larger service packs (typically once or twice a year); you seem to retain control over installing service packs - which is a good thing. I want to be able to install security and bug fixes, and even service packs of the
*same* version of Windows, but no way on earth am I going to let Microsoft update my working Windows 10 PC to a crippled and significantly modified Windows 11! The problem is that every time MS upgrade Windows, they change bits of it: they *remove old functionality* as well as adding new functionality.
MS doesn't in fact try very hard at all. I prefer to use Chrome, for the synching over my non Win devices as well as the Win devices and while MS did try to get me to use Edge on a new laptop running Win11, it didn't in fact try very hard and hasn't tried again recently.
If you give the machine Hell while it is trying to catch up on those updates it likes so much, it'll return the favour by "pretending to be overwhelmed". The OPs response of letting it sit, is why it eventually recovered.
While restarting should have no effect on well designed software... you can finish that sentence for yourself :-) On an older OS release, you could break Windows Update, then have to clean it up and start rolling the ball of dung uphill again. The life of a dung beetle is an unhappy one.
Nope. Mine works fine and definitely doesn't crawl, even with Edge, Firefox and Thunderbird open, and Internet security checking everything on the fly.
Also manages Adobe Lightroom V4 reasonably well.
The only time complains is if I try and look at certain parts of the Apple website, and those iritating 360 degree views that car manufacturers insist that you 'need' to look at.
Not on my Win 10 PC they don't. I get a notification on the bottom right hand corner which says "There are some updates that you need to install". After clicking on it, it takes you into the Win 10 Update app and only then does the display show "downloading NN%" followed by "installing NN%".
Only the Win10 and Win11 migration packages were downloaded in the background without any choice by the user.
Odd then that there are so many websites telling you how to tweak the registry or use the metered connection option specifically to stop updates downloading automatically.
There are probably so many variables Win 10 Home Win 10 Pro, OTC, pre-installed OEM Super Administrator. Administrator that there's probably no one single definitive answer or default.
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