Windows 7 Ultimate will not fully load.

I'm working on a neighbor's computer that had a number of viruses on it. I ran four different virus scanners that I placed on a boot DVD to get rid of them but it appears that the viruses may have roughened up the registry. The computer is an IBM Lenovo model A55 ThinkCentre with Windows 7 Ultimate installed. What is happening is after you click on either the Administrator or User icon to log in, you get a black background for a desktop, a mouse pointer, and a task window but nothing else. I have to close explorer.exe and re-load it in order to get Windows 7 to finish loading. Once I do that, everything appears fine except for the fact that I can't get any windows updates. I installed Comodo security suite offline from my thumb drive but it won't update either. I have already tried downloading and running the Windows 7 update readiness tool which says everything is fine with the registry. I then downloaded and burned a copy of SP1 from my computer to DVD and tried installing it but after the reboot, it says there was an error and couldn't complete and then gives the following code.... 0x800f0826.

Anyone have any ideas?

Matt

You might start by running two utilities. First a Chkdsk to try to clean up any corruption on the Hard Drive.

After that, open an Administrative Command Prompt and run the System File Checker.

SFC /scannow

Let it finish and see if it shows any corrupted files.

If a driver or a registry entry has been modified or corrupted, you may need to reload that driver..probably start with the video. You might check the Event Viewer to see if it gives any clues to the problem.

If you decide to do a repair install, and the system is running SP1, you can download the SP1 included Install DVD .iso for here:

Download Windows 7 ISO (Official 32-bit and 64-bit Direct Download Links) « My Digital Life

I already tried sfc/scannow and it said that it didn't find any errors. As for the install DVD, it will want the security key to finish the repair install and I don't know what that is. The customer doesn't have the original installation for the computer and from what I can tell this computer came with either XP Pro or Vista. Apparently it was upgraded before he got it. I did find that Windows didn't start having trouble with Auto Update until 7/21/11. It said that it couldn't connect to the Auto Update service. And it repeats itself every 5 days all the way up to now. I went to event viewer (local)\custom views\Summary Page Events\ to view the warning messages.

I forgot to mention that I installed Comodo security suite but unable to get any updates for it either. I can browse around in Firefox and IE but can't update anything. I found also that when I hibernate and power back up, the computer loads the desktop just fine. It's when I shut down and power up that I get the problem with the desktop and task bar not loading unless I close and restart explorer.exe through task manager.

Matt

Well, given all the problems you're having isn't it easier to just format the OS partition and reinstall a fresh copy of Windows?
Is there any important data on the disk that hasn't been backed up? Do you have the product key for Windows Ultimate?

I have a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate that is for HP and Compaq computers that have a specific chipset. If the computer that I want to install 7 on doesn't have the matching chipset than I will get a nasty gram. His computer is an IBM which didn't originally come with 7 as I mentioned earlier and the guy doesn't have the discs. He bought it with 7 already installed.

You can download a retail copy of Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 from digital river at this address:
msft[dot]digitalrivercontent[dot]net/win/X17-59465.iso
it's 100% legit (although I haven't tested it myself) but you'll need a valid product key for it.

The computer I'm working on uses the 32 bit version of 7 Ultimate. The only problems I'm having at this point is trying to get it to where I can download updates. What ever is causing this affects any program that needs updates like the Comodo internet security that I've downloaded along with the usual windows updates. It also seems to affect the explorer.exe file from loading correctly. I have to close it and re-open it to complete. It seems like it would be a simple fix but the key is figuring out what is causing it. I was hoping that I wasn't the only person having this problem and that there are others that did have the same issue and were able to fix it without having to do a complete reinstall.

I just wanted to give an update on the progress.

I have managed to get Windows Update to work now and had discovered that the time and date format along with the currency settings were all set to United Kingdom. I had to go into Region and Language under Control Panel and install the US region to get that straightened out. The only two things left now is to get the Comodo security suite to update and also fix Explorer.exe so that it will load correctly the first time and not have to close and restart the file from Task Manager.

Matt

The screenshot below is what I see after getting past the welcome screen. I have to bring up task manager, select processes, close and re-open "explorer.exe" in order to bring up the desktop with task bar. Do you think that if I delete and re-install the file that it may fix it? If so then how exactly should I do this?

How did you fix the Windows update process? What was wrong with it?
I don't think replacing the explorer executable will help, since when you close and relaunch it it seems to work correctly, but you can try all the same if you manage to unlock it and delete it. I think actually deleting it might be troublesome though.