Black desktop after login

Hello, I have an HP Laptop. It should be very up to date, which might be the problem? Lately, it's been slow to shutdown, but otherwise working well. I installed a 16gb stick of ram when I first got it, which was about two years ago. I take very good care of it.

The computer launches normally, but when I input my pin and log in, the screen is black. The pixels are still illuminated, but nothing is showing. My cursor shows and moves around normally. If I Ctrl Alt Del, the options menu appears as usual, though on the black background. I can open the task manager as normal from here, but again on black. From running a task, I can run certain programs, or at least Edge. I can also open CMD. If I try something like start ms-settings:, though, I get an error in another window that I can AltTab to. I can't get the desktop or anything from the task bar, as far as I've tried.

The only other things worth mentioning is that I'm running two programs to improve 11. One is Power Toys, which I'm fairly certain I installed from the windows store. But I can't remember the name of the other one. Maybe File Options? It has a ton of little improvements you can check.

Coincidentally, I am somewhere new and am not online, and i can't get internet settings to open to connect.

Any ideas? I appreciate your help.

In this guide, you will learn the steps to perform a clean boot on Windows 11 and Windows 10 to help you troubleshoot and determine conflicts in your setup.

Oh! I completely forgot to mention that the bios won't boot. I mash F8 a thousand times as soon as I hit power, but the bios will not open. It goes straight to the login screen like normal. I also tried a hard restart, I think it's called, by holding power for 15 seconds and then plugging it in and booting, but there was no difference.

I had this issue this morning, coincidentally, and what fixed it for me is clicking CTRL + ALT + DELETE, then opening task manager. Click run new task, and type in explorer.exe, and check "Create this process with administrative privileges"

I think you installed KB5026372 optional may update or KB50271231 june update or both with the option "Get the latest updates as soon as they're available" checked in WU, so Windows automatically enables the Moment 3 new features on your pc through an automatic Windows Configuration Update. The problem is that moment 3 features are still experimental, so enabling them can cause issues in some systems (probably the issues are related to the explorer personalization softwares). If you experienced the blank screen after reboot you don't need to uninstall the entire update, which contains also security improvements.

Do this:

At the blank screen after reboot click CTRL-ALT-CANC and open task manager.

Click execute new process and launch explorer.exe. The deskop appears.

Download Vivetool 0.3.3 (Releases · thebookisclosed/ViVe), unzip, open cmd in Vivetool folder as administrator and type: vivetool /disable /id:41655236

Reboot and windows starts normally. You can delete ViveTool folder, if you want. Now you have all the security updates installed and Moment 3 features disabled (check if your system is updated to 22621.1848).

Gryffin said:

Oh! I completely forgot to mention that the bios won't boot. I mash F8 a thousand times as soon as I hit power, but the bios will not open. It goes straight to the login screen like normal. I also tried a hard restart, I think it's called, by holding power for 15 seconds and then plugging it in and booting, but there was no difference.

Click to expand...

Use the following command to boot your computer into BIOS.

Lots to report! Got it to work thanks to you all!
1. How could I possibly forget explorer.exe? I've been using Windows since 98. I fear for my memory. However, explorer.exe didn't work! Nothing happened.
2. Thanks so much for the bios boot command, @FreeBooter . Worked perfectly.
3. @Alan Smithee I think you nailed it. I remember checking optional updates, which made me realize I could just system restore. Funny story, I have system restore disabled because my hard-drive is so small.

BUT, one can (and I did) uninstall the latest cumulative update from the bios. Boom, that solved it.

Now I'm running version 10.0.22621 Build 22621.


Thanks so much everyone.

Gryffin said:

BUT, one can (and I did) uninstall the latest cumulative update from the bios. Boom, that solved it.

Now I'm running version 10.0.22621 Build 22621.


Thanks so much everyone.

Click to expand...

Good job Gryffin, glad you could get it sorted. Now make sure to mark the thread as solved