Issues immediately after Windows 7 installation

A few weeks ago, I reinstalled 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate on my Dell Inspiron (it originally had Premium).


I have this habit of doing a clean reinstall every couple of months because things just get messy... so I made my own ISO to use whenever I wipe the drive—figured I'd share it here if anyone needs it.Yeah, it's pirated. 😁
I don't think the issue is the installation itself since I've used this exact image before without any drama.

I wiped the partition, installed Windows 7, tweaked the settings, installed my software, ran all the driver updates, Windows Update, the whole nine yards. Once everything was finished—even though I disabled User Account Control—that little UAC icon started popping up next to certain things:

And of course, those programs with the icon won't even launch unless I right-click and select "run as admin." I'm the only user on this machine, always logged in as an admin, so I don't get what the hell is happening.

On top of that, I don't have write permissions for the C: drive, so I had to manually fix the permissions for every single folder in Program Files and Program Files x86—and even then, it wouldn't work unless I gave full access to every single user profile.

I scanned every partition with Malwarebytes, Avast, MSE, Spyhunter, Panda, and Kaspersky... nothing. Nothing at all. As far as installed software goes, I've got Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, CATIA, WinRAR, Paint.NET, BS Player, Call of Duty 4, Xfire, Skype, Viber, Lightshot, MSE, MBAM, CCleaner, Foxit Reader, Chrome, and Notepad++—nothing sketchy or weird.

Then, a couple of days ago after a major Windows update (I do them manually every two weeks), my boot time shot up from under a minute to ten minutes. After the "Starting Windows" screen disappears, the display just goes black and stays like that for ten minutes until the password prompt finally shows up. After that, it takes a few seconds for the startup stuff to load and everything to actually function properly.

What is the deal with this and how do I fix it?

silentwolf53 said:A few weeks ago, I reinstalled 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate on my Dell Inspiron (it originally had Premium).


I have this habit of doing a clean reinstall every couple of months because things just get messy... so I made my own ISO to use whenever I wipe the drive—figured I'd share it here if anyone needs it.Yeah, it's pirated. 😁
I don't think the issue is the installation itself since I've used this exact image before without any drama.

I wiped the partition, installed Windows 7, tweaked the settings, installed my software, ran all the driver updates, Windows Update, the whole nine yards. Once everything was finished—even though I disabled User Account Control—that little UAC icon started popping up next to certain things:

And of course, those programs with the icon won't even launch unless I right-click and select "run as admin." I'm the only user on this machine, always logged in as an admin, so I don't get what the hell is happening.

On top of that, I don't have write permissions for the C: drive, so I had to manually fix the permissions for every single folder in Program Files and Program Files x86—and even then, it wouldn't work unless I gave full access to every single user profile.

I scanned every partition with Malwarebytes, Avast, MSE, Spyhunter, Panda, and Kaspersky... nothing. Nothing at all. As far as installed software goes, I've got Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, CATIA, WinRAR, Paint.NET, BS Player, Call of Duty 4, Xfire, Skype, Viber, Lightshot, MSE, MBAM, CCleaner, Foxit Reader, Chrome, and Notepad++—nothing sketchy or weird.

Then, a couple of days ago after a major Windows update (I do them manually every two weeks), my boot time shot up from under a minute to ten minutes. After the "Starting Windows" screen disappears, the display just goes black and stays like that for ten minutes until the password prompt finally shows up. After that, it takes a few seconds for the startup stuff to load and everything to actually function properly.

What is the deal with this and how do I fix it?

Something just isn't quite right. Have you tried running the installation again using the ISO file? If that doesn't do the trick, you might need to start from scratch and reinstall everything step-by-step—the OS and all your software. 😵 😵

I did the installation just like I always do—and believe me, I've done this more times than I can count. Everything was running smooth as silk after I installed it and turned off User Account Control. But then... everything went sideways right after the update.

If you've run this exact same installation on this laptop multiple times before, I'm assuming you don't need to hunt down some obscure drivers for the CPU or motherboard. The update probably already handled all that.

That leaves the OS itself. It’s entirely possible the installation just didn't take properly, even if everything worked fine last time. I mean, it's still 😬 Windows. Another possibility is the installation order—if you did things in a different sequence this time, it could have glitched out. Or, thirdly, maybe something new kicked in after the update that's clashing with whatever you mentioned in lowercase...

Honestly, I'm not convinced trying to repair the installation will actually fix anything. In my opinion, you'll just end up wasting your time digging through security settings that become a nightmare to manage once they start acting up. Since you mentioned you do periodic reinstalls anyway, it's probably smartest to just wipe it and start fresh. Just make sure you stick to your usual routine so nothing gets messed up.

That's really it...

Btw, your signature disappeared...

You can grab a clean ISO that’s already packed with all the updates through April 2015 from http://www.drillbell.ro/.

Well, looks like I don't have much of a choice then... I'll mess around with it tomorrow—can't get to it today. Thanks for the link 🙂

My routine is always the same—Windows, drivers, Chrome, antivirus, MBAM, CCleaner, Microsoft Office, updates, and then everything else after that. Honestly, I do this stuff on autopilot now 😁 it's just muscle memory at this point.

Regarding the Windows serial, when I bought my Dell Inspiron, it came with a Premium version. There’s a sticker on the bottom with the key and everything—can I actually use that? It's not like there's any massive difference between Ultimate and Premium anyway.

silentwolf53 said:Well, looks like I don't have much of a choice then... I'll mess around with it tomorrow—can't get to it today. Thanks for the link 🙂

My routine is always the same—Windows, drivers, Chrome, antivirus, MBAM, CCleaner, Microsoft Office, updates, and then everything else after that. Honestly, I do this stuff on autopilot now 😁 it's just muscle memory at this point.

Regarding the Windows serial, when I bought my Dell Inspiron, it came with a Premium version. There’s a sticker on the bottom with the key and everything—can I actually use that? It's not like there's any massive difference between Ultimate and Premium anyway.

Also, once you start reinstalling stuff, get into the habit of making a restore point before you install any software or run an update.
That way, you don't have to wipe everything and start from scratch; you can just roll back to the previous step.

Based on everything being said here, it sounds like one of your updates just completely trashed something.

silentwolf53 said:Well, looks like I don't have much of a choice then... I'll mess around with it tomorrow—can't get to it today. Thanks for the link 🙂

My routine is always the same—Windows, drivers, Chrome, antivirus, MBAM, CCleaner, Microsoft Office, updates, and then everything else after that. Honestly, I do this stuff on autopilot now 😁 it's just muscle memory at this point.

Regarding the Windows serial, when I bought my Dell Inspiron, it came with a Premium version. There’s a sticker on the bottom with the key and everything—can I actually use that? It's not like there's any massive difference between Ultimate and Premium anyway.

🙂 Jesus Christ, of course you can. It might even activate the other one 😬