Windows 10 Task Bar is empty and then screen turns black. Same issues each time for multiple people.

[Kkody2]

Today at my school, my class (its a small class of 14) all have the same laptop, the HP ProBook 450 G4 on Windows 10 Education I believe. They all have worked fine except starting today. If you were to restart the laptop this is very likely to happen to it.
I was confident that it was just my classmates not taking care of their computer so I was thinking Windows got corrupted or something. So I restarted my computer to prove it works fine for me and boom, my computer started doing it too. (it was maybe my 3rd time restarting that day, the other times it did not do it)

What is happening:
So you boot up into Windows just like normal
You sign into your account (takes longer than usual).
Then the screen flickers and your task bar is empty. All you can see is the windows icon, cortana icon, and the Task view icon. All of which are "un-clickable."
You can open the File explorer and the run menu using Windows + E and R (things like that)
If you have shortcuts on your desktop, you can open software from their, but if you minimize it doesn't go to the taskbar. You have to ALT + TAB to switch.
After about 3-5 minutes, the screen turns to your background color, if you have anything open, it will stay open, but if you minimize then you are done for. The only thing you can do at this point is CTRL + ALT + DEL and then shut down from there.

Note:
Every single one of these problems happen every single time you restart, and for everyone it is happening to.

Now since this is a school laptop, I am unable to do any troubleshooting as I need the Administrative Password.
My school does have an IT guy who comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, however he doesn't really know much of anything as he just googles everything almost. That is why I am asking here to see what people think is going on.

Its strange because like 5 students and even 2 teachers all have this same exact issue.

I was able to back up all of my school files to a flashdrive before the screen went blank just in case a system restore or factory reset needs to be done.

 

[xtcmax]

Hello.
Please take a looksy at this video and think if you could perform that on your laptop/school laptops?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz9wO7_tfOs

And the generic question: Have you scanned for malware/viruses using different software? (malwarebytes, anti virus, etc, etc)

 

[Kkody2]

Hello.
Please take a looksy at this video and think if you could perform that on your laptop/school laptops?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz9wO7_tfOs

And the generic question: Have you scanned for malware/viruses using different software? (malwarebytes, anti virus, etc, etc)

"regedit.exe is disabled by your administrator."
Literally pretty much everything is blocked on these computers, even the calendar app and the photos app is blocked.
It's strange though because everyone's computer only started doing this today apart from one of my friends who started having the issue on Friday.

 

[xtcmax]

It seems like a virus because all computers got it.

 

[Kkody2]

It seems like a virus because all computers got it.

What could it be from though? these laptops have so many restrictions plus its happening at the same time for everyone?

 

[xtcmax]

It is hard to say. Are laptops linked into a network or they are all separate machines? I doubt that an update would cause this, then there would be a poop storm of complaints on the internet. Maybe a funky student brought it, who knows.

 

[Kkody2]

It is hard to say. Are laptops linked into a network or they are all separate machines? I doubt that an update would cause this, then there would be a poop storm of complaints on the internet. Maybe a funky student brought it, who knows.

There is the school network that the laptops connect to. They may be linked as I saw a list on the IT computer showing all of the laptop's names. Like mine is HP450-12, so my laptop would show on his computer as that. But students are allowed to bring them home and browse without "FortiGuard" protecting browsing. However, they still can't download things at home.

As far as I know, these HP laptops are the only ones that have this issue. Also the only laptops our school has that has Windows 10...
The rest have Windows 7

 

[Kkody2]

Well, went to school today, our school's IT guy was there today.
And well... he doesn't know what to do.
I mentioned virus and I even previously did a full scan on Windows Defender with nothing spotted.
He said if it was a virus his computer should show it and there was nothing.

More computers were "infected" today when they restarted. What is weird though, is at least 2 of them worked normally once they were on their own home internet. Mine still does not work normally at my house.

 

[xtcmax]

Maybe there was an update...

Check this out:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_search/start-menu-doesnt-appear/a7c56613-277c-4993-bb74-08650dce7b21

and

You may be able to temporarily resolve the issue by booting to Safe Mode with Networking, and then immediately booting back into normal mode. This workaround may resolve your problem for a while, however the error may return later.

Safe mode with Networking starts Windows in safe mode and includes the network drivers, services needed to access the Internet or other computers on your network.

How to boot win 10 into safe mode:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12376/windows-10-start-your-pc-in-safe-mode

Can you see how far your restore points go? We might want to roll back.
http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/computing/windows-10/how-to-fix-windows-10-problems-with-system-restore-11364008291943

p.s. if we can fix your laptop, you will be able to fix laptops at school.

 

[mjslakeridge]

It sure sounds like a virus/malware to me. Even though your can't download when the laptop is at home, browsing websites could still cause an infection. I would be hesitant to use the laptop on my home network until the issue is resolved, so that the home network's computers aren't infected also. Windows Defender doesn't catch all malware. You may try running Malwarebytes at home. Since you can't download to the laptop, download it on another computer at your home and transfer it to your school laptop (if you can even do that without admin rights).

 

[xtcmax]

Below are some tools for you:

Malwarebytes:
https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/

herdProtect:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/herdprotect.html

Online malware detection by ESET:
https://www.eset.com/int/home/online-scanner/

1. Go to the desktop, right click anywhere, hover your mouse over new and then click shortcut
2. When you are making a shortcut it will ask you to type a location. type in "msconfig", click next and then it will ask you what you want to name the shortcut name it anything you want its not imprtant.
3 . A shortcut for msconfig will show up double click it and click on the boot tab at the top. once in the boot tab enable safeboot and the click network underneath it and then click apply then OK it will ask if you want to restart you should restart it
4. Once it is restarted you should go to ms config again and then turn off safe boot and the apply and restart again and hopefully once you have done that things should return to normal

 

[Kkody2]

If I download something on my own home computer onto a flashdrive, and transfer it to the school laptop, it needs admin powers to run it.
I booted into safe mode with networking and safe mode without networking and upon bootup, an error shows up.
"sihost.exe Unknown hardware error"

I went into the details under task manager and it shows it is running.

But if there "is" something wrong with something on the OS, then a system restore should fix it.... which needs admin powers.....
This could be something the IT guy has tried, but it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't being he didn't even know you could push Windows + E to get to the file explorer and Windows + R: control panel to get to the control panel without having the start menu...

There are actually a few different model HP laptops with Windows 10 that have not had this issue at all. It's only the ProBook 450 G4's.

One student today had their laptop automatically update and restart (she never shut down since restarting is what caused it)
When it turned back on, her's was doing the same thing.

 

[mjslakeridge]

After thinking about it some more, I thought that you probably wouldn't be able to install Malwarebytes or HerdProtect on the laptop without administrative rights. What I would suggest is your IT guy do either a reset or a clean install of Windows on one of the laptops, and then wait and see if the problem returns on that laptop. If it does, it would confirm that the network is infected.

I don't know if this would work with Malwarebytes, but you could try booting your laptop with a Linux OS and try running Malwarebytes while at home. Someone else here may know whether or not Malwarebytes or some other malware removal software will run on Linux.

 

[xtcmax]

Or Kkody could invite their IT guy here and we could have a nice tea party and problem discussion.

On a serious note, the IT guy should try removing the latest Windows Updates to rule out the possibility of them messing with the computers.

He can also remove the admin password on one of the laps and you can take it home to work with us. Although the IT guy prolly won't do it because of the "job security" for him.

 

[Kkody2]

After thinking about it some more, I thought that you probably wouldn't be able to install Malwarebytes or HerdProtect on the laptop without administrative rights. What I would suggest is your IT guy do either a reset or a clean install of Windows on one of the laptops, and then wait and see if the problem returns on that laptop. If it does, it would confirm that the network is infected.

I don't know if this would work with Malwarebytes, but you could try booting your laptop with a Linux OS and try running Malwarebytes while at home. Someone else here may know whether or not Malwarebytes or some other malware removal software will run on Linux.

I got to school and our IT guy came running to me saying he found a fix.
Literally all he did was plug in the computer to an Ethernet cord and signed into the administrator account. Then when I restarted and signed into my account, it works fine again somehow

 

[xtcmax]

LOL...sometimes windows are just like GOD - unexplained and mysterious. I am glad u resolved the issue.

 

[mjslakeridge]

I don't know how just signing into the Admin account and then back to your user account would solve the problems you described above. You said you backed up your files to a USB drive. Run Malwarebytes or Herdprotect on that drive to make sure there are no infected files there.

I have a feeling we haven't heard the last of this, but if by some "miracle" logging in as administrator fixed it...Great!

 

[xtcmax]

I don't know how just signing into the Admin account and then back to your user account would solve the problems you described above, but if by some "miracle" logging in as administrator fixed it...Great!

Could it be that the laptop needed some permissions to do its magic after Windows Update?

 

[mjslakeridge]

Possible ^^^. But I would think if Admin access was needed for the update to complete, it would just not complete the update until signed in as admin. I am not that familiar with how networked computers connected to a server get updated.