Desktop disappearing and more. Need help!

[sloan1209]

When I turn on the computer and get to the desktop, everything is seemingly normal. However, the icons on my taskbar are gone and the windows icon and search are unresponsive. A few minutes later, the desktop goes black and nothing shows up at all. I can still use what ever program I have running, but nothing else works.

MORE INFO:

This started yesterday when I as playing a game. The game crashed hardcore forcing me to restart my computer. When I did, it gave me a blue screen : 0xc000021a. it could not get past it. When I tried to restore windows to a previous date, it failed. When I tried again, the two dates that were available were gone and I had nothing to go back to. Today however, they for some reason are there again. I tried it again and it failed, yet when it restarted it got past the blue screen and said it worked.... weird.... Since then, i've been having the above issues so something isn't fixed.
(windows 10)

EDIT: I ended up having to reinstall windows. It was a hassle, but everything seems to be working fine. thanks for you help everyone.

 

[R_1]

which version of windows? sounds like when explorer crashes in windows 7. if it happens again (and its windows 7) try to relaunch explorer.exe.
three finger salute (CTRL+ALT+DEL) and open the task manager. when it opens click File in the menu bar at the top edge, go to new task (run), and in the box enter "explorer.exe" no quotes and the icons and the rest of the GUI should launch.

 

[sloan1209]

which version of windows? sounds like when explorer crashes in windows 7. if it happens again (and its windows 7) try to relaunch explorer.exe.
three finger salute (CTRL+ALT+DEL) and open the task manager. when it opens click File in the menu bar at the top edge, go to new task (run), and in the box enter "explorer.exe" no quotes and the icons and the rest of the GUI should launch.

Windows 10. I have already gone into task manager and re-ran it and checked "crate this task with administrative privileges" to see if that helped, and it still crashes eventually. I also just left my computer for about 10 minutes and when I came back, it was frozen. Everything was unresponsive.

 

[Shaun o]

Why is it when situations like this happen.

That a bit of small logic does not suddenly hit you, as to how easy it is to fix the problem.

Why do system restore points exist in windows ?
Because all it takes is a bit of software or a change, addition of software, a virus, or malware to effect the system at any time. That it`s self is true.

So if you run windows backup and restore and check the last restore point made it will tell you if something was installed causing the problem.
Then choosing a system restore point before that one in date and time should fix it ?

People need to learn to use windows restore and back up for times when this happens to there system, and yet I can never figure out why it is not the first thought for most people to use the feature in windows.

Ah yes of course, why didn`t I think of that !!!!!!

Your welcome.

 

[sloan1209]

Why is it when situations like this happen.

That a bit of small logic does not suddenly hit you, as to how easy it is to fix the problem.

Why do system restore points exist in windows ?
Because all it takes is a bit of software or a change, addition of software, a virus, or malware to effect the system at any time. That it`s self is true.

So if you run windows backup and restore and check the last restore point made it will tell you if something was installed causing the problem.
Then choosing a system restore point before that one in date and time should fix it ?

People need to learn to use windows restore and back up for times when this happens to there system, and yet I can never figure out why it is not the first thought for most people to use the feature in windows.

Ah yes of course, why didn`t I think of that !!!!!!

Your welcome.

i did use system restore.... twice, two different dates. Both of which have the same problem. I said that I tried it and it failed the first time, then the next day i did it and it worked.

 

[Colif]

open a command prompt with admin rights
type SFC /scannow and press enter

this will scan system files and see if it can fix anything.

once its done, then paste this into same window DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and press enter

it does a similar job to SFC but can fix any errors SFC cannot.

 

[sloan1209]

open a command prompt with admin rights
type SFC /scannow and press enter

this will scan system files and see if it can fix anything.

once its done, then paste this into same window DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and press enter

it does a similar job to SFC but can fix any errors SFC cannot.

As I said, I was getting a lot of blue screens before this. The suggestions I was seeing online was to do this same thing. It kept saying that there was an error and couldn't do it, but maybe now it will work. I'll try it after work, thanks for the suggestion. I will reply with how it worked

 

[sloan1209]

open a command prompt with admin rights
type SFC /scannow and press enter

this will scan system files and see if it can fix anything.

once its done, then paste this into same window DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and press enter

it does a similar job to SFC but can fix any errors SFC cannot.

when I run sfc, it basically says there are corrupt files but can't do anything about it. When I run DISM, it says this: "The source files could not be found.
Use the "Source" option to specify the location of the files that are required to restore the feature."

I don't know what to do to make it work

 

[Colif]

Whenever i suggest DISM I toss up giving this extra bit as it is not always needed

To fix the sources error, you need to download the ISO for Windows 10 from here: Win 10 media creation tool (if you not sure how, follow the steps to make a DVD as it will create an ISO file.)

Then use these instructions to mount the ISO in File explorer: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3579-iso-img-file-mount-unmount-windows-10-a.html

and then copy/paste the below command into Command Prompt with admin rights (replace the X with the drive letter assigned to ISO) - the spacing is important.

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /source:WIM:X:\Sources\Install.wim:1 /LimitAccess

Where "X" is the drive letter where the ISO is located. Simply change the "X" to the correct drive letter

once its finished, redo a SFC and it should be able to fix the files it couldn't before.


If it still doesn't work, I would suggest a fresh install of Win 10 using the Media Creation tool to create a USB or DVD

 

[sloan1209]

Whenever i suggest DISM I toss up giving this extra bit as it is not always needed

To fix the sources error, you need to download the ISO for Windows 10 from here: Win 10 media creation tool (if you not sure how, follow the steps to make a DVD as it will create an ISO file.)

Then use these instructions to mount the ISO in File explorer: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3579-iso-img-file-mount-unmount-windows-10-a.html

and then copy/paste the below command into Command Prompt with admin rights (replace the X with the drive letter assigned to ISO) - the spacing is important.

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /source:WIM:X:\Sources\Install.wim:1 /LimitAccess

Where "X" is the drive letter where the ISO is located. Simply change the "X" to the correct drive letter

once its finished, redo a SFC and it should be able to fix the files it couldn't before.


If it still doesn't work, I would suggest a fresh install of Win 10 using the Media Creation tool to create a USB or DVD

So I did the steps and everything worked the way it said it should and looked like the screenshots said it should look. I was SURE to change the X to the actual drive letter of the ISO file. When I ran it, it hung at 20% for a while then jumped to 100% and said this:
Error: 0x800f081f

The source files could not be found.
Use the "Source" option to specify the location of the files that are required to restore the feature. For more information on specifying a source location, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=243077.

If you don't know what to do about that then I will just reinstall windows I guess.
I have never done it before though, I assume I will have to reinstall all my MOBO, GPU, and VGA drivers and all that again? Is there anything else I should know? sorry if these are dumb questions.. I'm a pretty big noob to it, and I've gone through enough trouble with this PC.

 

[R_1]

if you have to reinstall, the most important driver to have in hand is the ethernet/network driver. After windows installs, install the network driver and then download fresh copies of all your drivers/updated software.
the drivers (CD/DVD) that came with the components are old and have been replaced many times by now. the network drive is the only one you need to get the rest

 

[sloan1209]

if you have to reinstall, the most important driver to have in hand is the ethernet/network driver. After windows installs, install the network driver and then download fresh copies of all your drivers/updated software.
the drivers (CD/DVD) that came with the components are old and have been replaced many times by now. the network drive is the only one you need to get the rest

Thank you for your input! I'm going to wait a day or two to see if Colif will reply with a solution but I'm sure it will just end with me reinstalling windows. I can at least still play games and use stuff, its just a pain in the ass. It's also quite frustrating having no taskbar icons and no desktop icons and opening everything through task manager haha. Anyway, thanks again.

 

[Ralston18]

You can also look in the Event Viewer logs.

See what, if anything is being recorded just before or at the time of the BSOD's.

Click and read any red or yellow entries you find. Right click for more details. Look for errors codes that may be provided.

 

[sloan1209]

I'm going to be reinstalling windows tonight. Since I haven't done this before, can someone tell me if I delete or format my drives? I want to start COMPLETELY fresh, NO trace that I've ever used the PC before.

There are two options, and I wasn't sure what the result of each were. again, it gives the option to DELETE or FORMAT my drives before it installs windows.

 

[Colif]

Even though you have a copy of installer, I would make a new one since the Anniversary edition is out now and contains updates. Use the media creation tool I linked above (see DISM explanation) and make another installer

You don't have to format or delete before the install, its part of the process

Follow this to do a clean install: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-windows-10-clean-install.html

when you get to page asking for licence, click "I don't have a key" or skip. Windows 10 will activate on install. when you upgraded to win 10 you got a digital entitlement on that PC so any time you install win 10 again it will auto activate.

 

[sloan1209]

Even though you have a copy of installer, I would make a new one since the Anniversary edition is out now and contains updates. Use the media creation tool I linked above (see DISM explanation) and make another installer

You don't have to format or delete before the install, its part of the process

Follow this to do a clean install: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-windows-10-clean-install.html

when you get to page asking for licence, click "I don't have a key" or skip. Windows 10 will activate on install. when you upgraded to win 10 you got a digital entitlement on that PC so any time you install win 10 again it will auto activate.

I just got done installing windows again and downloading all the drivers. Everything seems to be working fine again. Except the Intel(R) Management Engine Software(100 Series) driver... I tried to do that first before any other one and it failed immediately. I updated windows, installed all the other drivers first, and even tried installing the version of it from the MOBO disc. Nothing has worked. From my understanding, that is a pretty important driver to have.

One other driver (I think the net framework one) said it was already installed so it canceled itself. If that driver carried over through the reinstall, is it possible that the management engine software one did too and just doesn't have a prompt saying its already installed?

the exact error just says: Fatal error during installation
P.S. I triple checked that i selected the correct MOBO and Windows 64bit

 

[Colif]

Don't worry about installing it: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2993029/intel-management-engine-interface-driver-fatal-error-installation.html

win 10 would have .net updates installed already.

 

[sloan1209]

Don't worry about installing it: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2993029/intel-management-engine-interface-driver-fatal-error-installation.html

win 10 would have .net updates installed already.

Thank you! Good to know I don't have to worry about that now...

Thanks for your help and quick replies through this.

 

[Colif]

Glad to help