Apps Don't Load...Ever

I recently upgraded my computer and after struggling to get it to boot into Windows, I was able to get Windows 11 on a new SSD. Worked great...for a few days.

Now whenever I boot up, which is fairly often because I'm trying to diagnose the issue, I can only open applications within the first few seconds of signing into my account. Every click on an application afterwards is entirely fruitless. Nothing I try will load. Name a program - it won't load for me. Doesn't matter what it is or how much memory it uses.

At first I thought maybe it was Windows Update screwing up something, so I had all updates uninstalled and Windows Update disabled for three weeks. But nothing changed. I'm not sure where to go from here. I've never encountered this with my 15 years of owning desktop computers. I don't know what's causing this or what to try. Please help me figure this out.

You can also perform in-place upgrade of Windows 11. In-place upgrade is to use to replace the current operating system files on your computer. Unlike a clean installation of Windows, you can start a Windows in-place upgrade when your OS is still running. And an in-place upgrade can keep your files, settings, & apps during the upgrade process. You can perform a Windows 11 in-place upgrade is to use the Windows 11 Media Creation Tool. Make sure to select Upgrade this PC now and click Next. Follow the on-screen guide to perform a Windows 11 in-place upgrade.

One thing you can do to help troubleshoot is bring up Task Manager. Keep it open then click on a program to start. Watch Task Manager to see if anything pops up as loading that relates to that program. Also within Task Manager you can view CPU usage, memory usage and especially disk usage. See if anything is running at or near 100%. If nothing obvious is showing next look under Event Viewer under Windows Logs. Look under Application and System. Check the times to see if any errors are being logged.

Outside of that unless an easy fix is possible I'd start thinking about a Clean install of Win11. When you upgraded did you do an inplace upgrade from Win10 to Win11 or do a clean install?

BamaInArk said:

One thing you can do to help troubleshoot is bring up Task Manager. Keep it open then click on a program to start. Watch Task Manager to see if anything pops up as loading that relates to that program. Also within Task Manager you can view CPU usage, memory usage and especially disk usage. See if anything is running at or near 100%. If nothing obvious is showing next look under Event Viewer under Windows Logs. Look under Application and System. Check the times to see if any errors are being logged.

Outside of that unless an easy fix is possible I'd start thinking about a Clean install of Win11. When you upgraded did you do an inplace upgrade from Win10 to Win11 or do a clean install?

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I did that a few times. What I could see is instances of the programs showing up but not getting past 0.1 MB
Nothing is running at 100%
I checked Event Viewer for errors but I didn't see anything outside of me doing hard reboots.

When I "upgraded" (it was not an upgrade by any means of the term afaik) I had a copy of Windows 11 installed on a brand new SSD. I had to pay for a new product key. There's nothing in my computer that would have allowed me to use my old Windows 7 key. Everything was replaced, the hard drives had the old OS but were not accessible on my new system.

Are you using hard drives or SSDs on the new system?

BamaInArk said:

Are you using hard drives or SSDs on the new system?

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I'm using an SSD for the OS, but my hard drives are on the system for backup and long term file storage. I have a lot of music, pictures, and videos.

Disconnect all drives except the OS drive and all external devices except the keyboard and mouse. Boot the computer. .Does Windows load correctly. Try opening several Windows apps (notepad, weather, command prompt) What happens?
If in this condition apps still won't open, Make sure you have no corrupt system files that is causing this problem.
If possible, Open a command prompt as administrator and type sfc /scannow
Pay attention to the scan results to see if SFC found anything it could not repair. If it found corruption it could not fix followup with this command (note the spaces)
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
Restart computer

If possible Perform a clean boot to eliminate software conflict causing the issue. If it doesn't happen in a clean boot, you have some software conflicting with Windows. Brink's procedure will help you weed out which one. Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 11 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts Tutorial

If possible See if the problem happens in safe boot. Boot to Safe Mode in Windows 11 Tutorial

The problem could also be caused by a corrupted user account.

Okay good. I see you mentioned that in the OP too. You could also consider what @FreeBooter suggested in his post about. It's basically a reinstall of Win11 but you keep your programs/data intact. The installer just refreshes all the files. Something definitely got borked with your system.
You did suggest you struggled to get it to boot after initial install?

BamaInArk said:

Okay good. I see you mentioned that in the OP too. You could also consider what @FreeBooter suggested in his post about. It's basically a reinstall of Win11 but you keep your programs/data intact. The installer just refreshes all the files. Something definitely got borked with your system.
You did suggest you struggled to get it to boot after initial install?

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The initial install my motherboard, RAM, CPU, and power supply, I was unable to get the PC to boot into Windows. But a SSD and new OS took care of that.

This current SNAFU happened after my GPU got borked. Seems the Clean Boot fixed it. I am suspicious of the cause because there's at least one startup that mentioned NVIDIA, and I just had my card fail on Saturday. So I kept that one disabled.