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25 Feb 13 - 05:45 AM (#3483477) Subject: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: wilbyhillbilly I am in serious trouble if I can't sort this before my son gets home from school. His PC is a Dell optiplex 745 running WinXP He asked me to change his default browser back to IE as he had tried Google and didn't like it. So I did, then did a restart but now it gets to the blue screen with his name icon but when I click on it it will not load the personal settings just does nothing. I tried control alt delete and it just went to the desktop background picture but no icons, and then just freezes. I had to switch it off at the mains. I have tried 3 times now and it's the same every time. I suppose it is a startup problem, but only having limited knowledge, I dare not do anything without a bit of advice in case I make it worse. Can someone please help as Danny will be heartbroken (he's only 11) if I can't fix it. |
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25 Feb 13 - 05:58 AM (#3483479) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: wilbyhillbilly I've got into the System Setup screen and got to Boot Sequence which is listed like this: 1 Onboard or USB CD-ROM Drive 2 Onboard Network Controller 3 Onboard or USB Floppy Drive 4 Onboard SATA Hard Drive Don't know if this is anything to do with the problem. I was wondering if the hard drive should be number one. |
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25 Feb 13 - 06:21 AM (#3483481) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: maeve I'm sure someone who can help will be along soon. |
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25 Feb 13 - 06:39 AM (#3483484) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: gnomad Can system restore help (and/or be reached)? I'm no computer geek, but wonder whether a reset to earlier configuration, then delete the Google browser altogether might do the trick. If Google were wanted as a back-up presumably it could be re-installed without making it the default? Someone with proper ideas will doubtless be along soon, good luck. PS: I wouldn't fiddle with the boot order without expert guidance, the above looks OK as to 1 and 3. As long as there isn't anything in either drive they will simply be ignored. 2 I am less sure of, but as long as you've changed nothing I would leave it as is for now. |
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25 Feb 13 - 06:47 AM (#3483485) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: GUEST,SPB at work When I had a problem with my laptop a web-based forum www.bleepingcomputer.com solved the problem - but it took two days, and I needed access to another PC for emails. |
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25 Feb 13 - 08:07 AM (#3483505) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: wilbyhillbilly Thanks all. I found out from Microsoft how to start in safe mode and managed to do a system restore from there, hopefully it will be ok now, but I'm certainly not going to try changing the browser again. He will just have to live with it. |
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25 Feb 13 - 11:20 PM (#3483743) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: EBarnacle I have found that many people seem to have problems after installing [or allowing Google Chrome] as part of another installation. You got off with a scare this time. As Elmer Fudd was prone to observe, "Be vewy carefuw. Theh are wabbits out there." |
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25 Feb 13 - 11:33 PM (#3483750) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: Amos Huh. I did the same change over on my Intel Mac with no problems. Maybe Microsoft is a little more protective of its business model... |
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26 Feb 13 - 12:34 AM (#3483765) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: JohnInKansas A problem of this kind might be related to the numerous "plug-ins" that tend to accumulate in browsers. With several browsers installed, it's possible to have quite a few such "helpers." Some of these "browser helper objects" (bhos) "register themselves" and deleting the object without removing the change in registry could cause something else to not work (although odds should be low). Apple has (partially) solved the problem by simply blocking any installation of several common kinds of "browser helpers" that they decided they don't want to worry about. The "tech press" people fairly frequently "joke(?)" about the "war between Microsoft and Google" but there obviously is a degree of "incompatibility" between the two that often seems intentionally implemented by one or the other, with both about equally guilty. John |
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26 Feb 13 - 03:01 PM (#3483980) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: Stilly River Sage That is an odd problem. I'm sure your son is long since home and back to school again, but what did you do to change the default browser in the first place? Did he know how to successfully restart the computer and change the browser himself? The typical approach is to go to the Start button (bottom left corner) and open up the default program setting screen from that first box that pops up or from within control panel. And on the program you have installed click on it and tell it it may be the default browser. You can also set the browser as default from within the browser itself. SRS |
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27 Feb 13 - 01:49 AM (#3484137) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: JohnInKansas A comment about Boot Sequence above asked a question that needs to be answered: I was wondering if the hard drive should be number one. During bootup the computer looks at the drives listed, in the order they're listed in, and if there's no boot information in the one it looks at first it goes on to the next one. All of the drives except the hard drive normally are "removable media" kinds, and normally won't have bootable media in them, so the "last one listed" will be the one that normally boots the machine. This lets you put a bootable CD/DVD, or flash drive, or other "boot drive" in front of the hard drive to boot to a different OS/setup, or to boot normally from the hard drive by leaving the other "drives" not connected or empty. If a hard drive fails or is corrupted you can stick a "recovery disk" in the DVD drive and boot from it, since it will be checked before the hard drive. If the Hard Drive came first, a corrupted drive might prevent you from booting at all. The system won't move past the first place it finds that "looks like it has boot information," and if the first one it tries to use is present but doesn't work, you can't get past it to any of the others. So the hard drive (the one you usually want) should usually be last in the list. Putting something "bootable" in front of the hard drive lets you boot from something different when you need to (and to a different OS if you want to) if something turns to crap on your hard drive. If the hard drive came first, you'd generally have to disconnect the hard drive (remove nuts and bolts and yank wires) to boot from anything else. John |
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27 Feb 13 - 10:59 AM (#3484293) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: wilbyhillbilly Cheers John, should have known you would supply the answer to my question. SRS, I did it through the control panel box, I wouldn't let him do it himself in case he messed up!!!!!!!! Maybe I should let him do it in future, lol. Just glad it's resolved now. |
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27 Feb 13 - 11:49 AM (#3484313) Subject: RE: Tech: Startup Problem.. Help Please From: JohnInKansas In olden times, when all most computers had was a floppy drive and a tiny hard drive, lots of people kept a write-protected floppy in the drive with a "phony" boot on it, in the belief that it would boot the machine to a crippled condition that would prevent anyone from getting into the machine to do something nasty. Attempts to write to the "system drive" (the floppy) would also pop up a warning that the floppy was read-only. It didn't do much good, but it made the believers feel better. A few more recent machines have been found to "hang" on the optical drive if it had a disk in it that wasn't bootable, but I don't think that's been a problem with any of the operating systems anyone should be running now. The simple way to change the default browser is probably just to open the browser you want to use and look for the "make default" button. In Internet Explorer its at Tools|Internet Options on the Programs tab. A click there makes IE the default. Other browsers probably work about the same, and sometimes it's convenient (I'm told) to flip back and forth, using one browser as the default for one kind of browsing and a different browser for some other uses. I'm not smart enough to figure out all the settings I'd want in more than one browser, and keep up with all the patches and changes, so I don't even try to use anything but IE, but then most of my browsing would look pretty boring to some people. People who have a life and/or a personality - both of which my sister says I never had - might find uses for more than one. John |