Desktop Window Manager causes crash during start/restart

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I’m trying to fix a neighbour’s laptop (Fujitsu 2GB Celeron, Vista Home Basic 32-bit SP2) which booted as far as the Windows Welcome screen and then crashed (powered off).

It booted OK in Safe Mode so, using msconfig, I tried a clean boot (failed) and then disabled windows services until I found the culprit to be Desktop Window Manager Session Manager so I disabled that and the laptop now boots normally.

I had to run Microsoft FixIt 50357 to get internet access (it was in Local mode), I then ran CCleaner, Malwarebytes, MSE and Microsoft Safety Scanner (full scans) and all were declared clean. I also ran Windows Update (30 important updates).

I then ran System File Checker and it found and fixed two problems.

Having done all that, it still crashes when Desktop Window Manager is enabled.

I would be grateful for any suggestions.

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DWM gives Vista all the “pretty” visual effects such as transparent windows, live taskbar thumbnails, & FLIP3d task switcher. You could try setting the them to Vista Basic and then enable one or more visual features until you find the one that is problematic.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks, Joe.
I’m not familiar with the themes but I went to Control Panel>Personalization>Window Color and Appearance. Then I Set Color scheme to Windows Vista Basic, went to Effects… and unchecked all 3 boxes. (I trust this is what you intended)
I set the Boot back to Normal, but it still failed on the Welcome screen.

Keith

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This is a darned nice bit of diagnostic work. I would be interested in knowing what the final outcome was and whether there was a fix. Hopefully Joe’s suggestion ID’s the culprit.

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Often when you can boot if safe mode but not in normal mode a driver is at fault. Have you updated any drivers recently?

Joe

--Joe

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I haven’t, but I don’t know what my neighbour or the previous owner have done.

Is there an easy way to check?

Keith

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Thanks, Joe, it was the driver (see later post)

Keith

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There is no simple way. Is the system up-to-date with service packs and patches?

Joe

--Joe

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Open device Manager and expand display adopters. Double click on your adapter to bring up properties. Click on the driver tab and see if ‘roll back driver” isn’t greyed out. if not, click on it to return to the previous driver.

If roll back driver is greyed out, see if a newer driver is available at the vendor’s web site.

Jerry

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Thanks, Jerry, it was the display driver.
Roll Back Driver took it back to Standard VGA Graphics Adapter (it was SiS Mirage 3 Graphics Properties) and it is now working beautifully with Normal Boot.

Keith

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Is there a Reliability Monitor included in Basic that you can use to look for correlations?

It was this very article that made me decide to subscribe to this site:
http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/get-help-from-the-windows-reliability-monitor/

I had never heard of it.

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I didn’t know Reliability Monitor was available in Vista. Thanks for that.

After rolling back the display driver I spent a few minutes in RelMon looking for driver updates. Last February 2nd there were ten driver install failures for USBVID_OFCE&PID_5156&MI_016&9D1C54&0&0001 and another two on Feb 16th and one on Feb 26th. The stability chart plunged on March 18 when there were updates for Windows Defender and Firefox, Malicious Software Removal Tool was installed and there were four disruptive shutdowns.

Thankfully all is fine now.

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Glad to hear you found the problem. Thanks for posting back.

Jerry

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