Cannot open anything

[Kay1188]

I did a software download of Windows 10 on my dell laptop. It worked perfectly. Today when I opened it up nothing opens. I can go to my desktop but that is it. The computer is 100 % charged. It was fine last night.

 

[thejackal85]

What do you mean you can't open anything? Are you able to access the start menu? When you double click on something nothing happens?

 

[khrystyan27]

Unfortunatelly I have the same problem when the laptop stays on for more than 2 days, along with those problems:

- Long shutdown/restart time (up to 20 minutes)
- Pointer dissapears
- Lag everywhere (Chrome opens in 2 minutes), pages load in 30 seconds - 1 minute.
- Can't start programs
- Start button (along with start bar) isn't responding (solution is to restart explorer.exe)

No virus, HDD health is good, Windows is original 8.1 X64 bit (Genuine).

 

[Kay1188]

What do you mean you can't open anything? Are you able to access the start menu? When you double click on something nothing happens?

 

[Kay1188]

When I double click nothing happens.

 

[thejackal85]

Have you restarted it? Did it (and these programs) work correctly after the upgrade?

 

[Kay1188]

Have you restarted it? Did it (and these programs) work correctly after the upgrade?

 

[Kay1188]

Yes everything worked up to yesterday. I did the software update to Windows 10 in December 2015

 

[thejackal85]

One thing we can try is a system restore. Open the menu and type in system restore and open that program. When you open it (assuming it's been active since you installed Windows 10), it will present you with a calendar of dates that you can choose to restore from. Try restoring from yesterday if it's available. Also, it's normal for it to fail out the first 1-2 times, try again on a different time/day if available.

 

[Kay1188]

One thing we can try is a system restore. Open the menu and type in system restore and open that program. When you open it (assuming it's been active since you installed Windows 10), it will present you with a calendar of dates that you can choose to restore from. Try restoring from yesterday if it's available. Also, it's normal for it to fail out the first 1-2 times, try again on a different time/day if available.

 

[Kay1188]

When I right click on the Windows icon on the bottom left hand side of desktop a list is shown, programs and features, mobility center and others. When I click on System it opens a menu open, print,restore previous versions but when I click on any of them nothing happens

 

[thejackal85]

Very strange, dang. Honestly, I would reinstall Windows. Something at some point seriously went wrong. Even if I were to get this problem corrected, I would still be concerned with what else could be wrong.

 

[Kay1188]

Now it shows nothing but a new menu showing view, sort by, refresh but it goes no further

 

[thejackal85]

Yeah, reinstall Windows. Something is wrong with that OS install and it might very well continue to fail the more you use it. Reinstall Windows and the problem will be corrected.

 

[Kay1188]

But how do I reinstall it. It was a software download , not a disc. Where would I go to on the laptop to do it.

 

[thejackal85]

If you still have the software download and a USB drive, you can install it. Copy the install to a USB drive onto a working PC. From that point, download the program Rufus, it takes .ISO files (which I'm assuming the software download is) and converts them into bootable images.

 

[Kay1188]

The download was done through an email from Dell. I cannot access my email.

 

[thejackal85]

Does someone else have another Windows machine you can use? You can do this from any machine that has Windows on it.

 

[Kay1188]

No I do not.

 

[thejackal85]

Then I would ask a friend or go to the library or something.

 

[Kay1188]

Then I would ask a friend or go to the library or something.

 

[Kay1188]

I went to task manager but it would not work.
Then I pressed FN and the power button. I waited a short while and turned it on again. Was able to get to desktop and onto Google. It appears to be working.
Thank you very much for your input.