Can't open anything

ShotsAtSix said:

My computer has been working fine until today when I switched it on Everything I opened was running ridiculously slow or just wouldn't open so I tried restarting the computer after that I could run programmes but only slowly and for about ten minutes before the computer decides it can't open anything again so I ran disk cleanup and ram diagnostic and scanned for viruses and tried a system restore to a week ago but nothing has made any difference now wen I load up straight away I can't open anything including task manager it won't let me log out or shut down unless I do so manually however I can still access safe mode and things seem to run fine on there I'm currently typing this on my phone as a alternative

Punctuation sure helps when reading a paragraph.

See if unplugging all external devices (with computer shut down), changes the situation when you turn it on.

If Safe Mode works fine there is a process that's doing this. You can use msconfg (in safe mode) to disable all startup programs that are not absolutely necessary. Then click the Services tab and check the little box to hide all MS services. After that click the button to Disable All... then put them in alphabetical order (click name column) and enable the first 10 services manually using a checkmark. Reboot NOT in safe mode but click the General tab and make sure you are booting selectively. If everything works good on the reboot, bring up msconfig in Windows and enable the next 10 processes, and reboot again... and keep doing that until you have a problem... then you'll know the problem is one of the previous 10 services, and you can disable 5 of them, reboot, etc... until you narrow it down to the problem. (Actually you can first enable the top half of the list and reboot... narrowing it down right away to whether the problem is in the first or second half of the list... then divide by half again and so on... faster than going 10 at a time.)

Time consuming, but ...

PS... the other thing you can look at, after booting into Windows with it not functioning right, is Control Panel -> Performance, Information & Tools -> click Advanced Tools at left..... then look for the hyperlink text that says "These programs are slowing down your computer" and click on that. If Windows has anything to report this hyperlink appears at the top of the window.