Solved Settings windows won't open except if i boot in safe mode.

Hi all,
last couple days settings window is not opening.

I am not lazy (or so i tink) so I have tried these, this and these.

Settings window open only when i am in safe mode.
So i conclude that in normal boot something loads that prevents settings from opening. But i do not see what this might be and i have not recently made any significant changes.

For a noob like me it is a weird situation, where i have no clue what else i can try and that is why i ask for the community which has many experienced users for help.

Any heads up?

Thank you for your time reading this.

Regards,
Nik.

Try a sective startup. Press the WIN key, type msconfig, open and untick load startup items.

Click OK then restart the computer.

If that does not help, try 'Diagnostic startup' as below.

Tell us the result.

I see your machine is very old (for a computer). The Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU was released in Q1, 2008? See Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8400 (6M Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB) Product Specifications .

I wonder if Windows 11 latest release (there was an update this week) has introduced an incompatibility with your old system/hardware?

@->Kepler

Thank you for trying to help.
I did as you proposed and when i press restart , pc went on a mode like it is in sleep state but could not wake.. In more words, it said it was restarting, then monitors, disks etc closed and seemed as everything was shut down except the power led was lit. It never restarted nor was starting in some way so i had to power it off by pressing the power button. When i turned it on again all start up items was loaded as if i had not choose not to load them.

So then i tried again what you proposed but this time i told it to shut down instead of restart. Well, after i turned it on , again , the startup items still loaded.

As for the "Diagnostic startup" you proposed, i do not really understand what/how i should do it.

@-->wingaken

this is an interesting thought. Unfortunately this is how i figured out that setting window does not open. A couple days ago i saw a message that i should restart to apply a windows update. I pressed the button to see what the update was but was not opening. So i pressed the settings to go there manually and found out that settings was not opening. I presume that the update was not installed so i had the error before. As for the pc , yes it is old indeed but with some cheap upgrades (ssd , used vga, memory upgrade etc) it is still very capable and does not give me a real reason to buy a new pc. Of course i had to buy one for my wife. Married men, can understand :)

Regards,
Nik.

P.S. Excuse my lame English.

Make a backup image first then try a 'Repair install of Windows 11'. See Repair Install Windows 11 with an In-place Upgrade Tutorial

Get a Windows 11 ISO, extract to USB drive and run setup.exe this is a repair reinstall, NOTHING LOST. I have done this many times with
Windows 10 and now Windows 11 to fix strange problems. GOOD LUCK

I tested the msconfig diagnostic startup and it locked me out of Windows! I could not log in with PIN or fingerprint.

@the_observer - Did you try the repair install option and did it fix the problem?

@kelper - I assume your post #7 was written using another machine but were you able to fix the issue and log-in again on the test machine?

wiganken said:

@kelper - I assume your post #7 was written using another machine but were you able to fix the issue and log-in again on the test machine?

Click to expand...

Luckily, I had a bootable USB HDD with Macrium Reflect and did a restore. I only have one laptop. Twice in one week I have made my laptop completely unusable but recovered in ten minutes with MR!

Brilliant. Yes, I also use MR and it has saved me twice in the last two years.

Please can someone else test this? Open MSConfig.exe, set diagnostic startup and reboot. Confirm that you are now unable to log in.

Shift and restart just takes you back to the login screen, but PIN and Windows Hello won't work (as no services are loaded).

Obviously, don't try this unless you have a very recent backup! I had forgotten how to get to my BIOS but I was able to boot from a UEFI USB.

@wiganken
Thank you for your concern.

At this time all Murphy laws have been loose. I bet you guys know what I am talking about.

First I created a backup at the current state. Full disk all partitions e.t.c.

Then I realized that I had a 2 week before backup so I decided to use it.
After restore , PC was freezing at boot trying to read the disk no matter what not even entering bios.
To bypass this I had to unplug the disk change achi to ide and plug it again and then I could enter bios and boot.

Alas, a blue screen of death has emerged followed by restart and this loop continued to infinity.

I tried to use windows rescue USB and repair boot but message was it cannot do it. Not to mention how many times I tried to make the windows rescue USB to run until by searching I realized I had to make it legacy since my PC is old.

Currently I am restoring again from the above mentioned backup (old version of AOMEI backuper ver. 5.6 the one used to create the backup) but this time I use an option for the restore saying that the restore is to a PC with different hardware hoping that this will bypass the change I have meanwhile made to ide from achi.

If this fail I intend to follow the instructions of this page .

If this won't work I can not imagine what else I can try.

Probably I will use the backup I made , the one I wrote you at the start of this message.

Hours in front of the PC up to now = 12

Thank you all for your concern and trying to help.

Regards.

P.S. woman is not yet pissed for I being so many hours in front of the PC so I continue my tries ,

@the_observer - Sounds like you need a new machine. It has done well to last 14 years. Good luck.

wiganken said:

@the_observer - Sounds like you need a new machine. It has done well to last 14 years. Good luck.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your suggestion.
If you have something else to suggest me i would appreciate it.

If you don't get this sorted, may I suggest you either take it to a computer shop or get a nerdy friend to install Windows 11 from scratch?

Where do you live?

@kepler no need for both of them

Finally the problem is solved ! :)

I thought that since bios could not scan the ssd when in achi mode something should have been messed with it.
So i deleted all partitions, formatted it and then i restored the backup on it.

Everything works like a charm up to now except from the wife who is a bit pissed.

Hard Disk Sentinel reports that ssd is 91% healthy and has about 1 year more of life and i should not worry at the moment. So i will buy a new ssd just in case.

Remains to see if the latest windows updates (since i used a 15 day backup and there now a couple windows updates to be installed) will make the no settings windows opening problem.

Next job i have to do is to fix system interrupts which occur from time to time freezing or stalling the pc momentarily. From what i read it won't be an easy task. I also think if i should install spectreX iso of windows but i have two concerns. One if it is safe since it is a modified windows 11 version and second if it can upgrade to my system. From what i read the first should not be a problem but for the second i was not able to locate a thread saying that can upgrade from windows 11 to spectreX. Most of them say it can upgrade from windows 10 to spectreX windows 11. If someone knows about it please give me a heads up.

Thank you all who helped me here and excuse my lame English.

Regards,
Nik.

the_observer said:

Next job i have to do is to fix system interrupts

Click to expand...

Is that from the wife?

If she is pissed in the American sense, you should get her pissed in the British sense.

How long have you been married?















How long do you think you will remain married?

Only meant in jest