A distinctive system crash problem, has me stumped.

This one's really got me baffled. In any given session on my laptop, I can load pretty much any installed program, no problem. BUT, if I exit a system intensive program and load another one, either the same program a second time or a different one, the computer crashes on load. Always before the program starts, always with a black screen and that "in progress" blue ring- which is frozen.

I am unable to alt tab, ctrl alt del, or windows button out of it. Only a hard reset/reboot clears whatever the problem is.

This is consistent across many programs, usually games. At first I'd thought it was a particular game, then I thought it was Steam games, and I've eventually figured out it's a system wide problem.

I've had this hard drive set up for a couple of years, and there was a definite time a few months ago when this problem started. Never had it before, always have it now. I'd suppose this would mean it's something software related, but I have NO idea what.

I guess if I have to, it might be time to slick my hard drive and start over, but I'd really rather not do that unless I have to. Has anyone else out there run across anything like this?

This is a hang which should never happen on Win7 with a perfect Clean Install on adequate hardware.

Is this perchance a factory pre-install needing to Clean Up Factory Bloatware or Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 as most tech enthusiasts would do?

I'd work through these Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 to look for clues in the logs, establish a clean boot to eliminate any other programs, utilize System Resources to solve problems, test your hardware, check System Files.