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Cannot get into Windows desktop. Stuck on black screen, DWM.exe crash
I am having problem where I am unable to even get to the desktop. It started after I used Autoruns tool to remove iCloud and a few other unnecessary apps from running during startup (nothing system related).
I can get to the login screen but once I enter my password, it takes an extremely long time to process everything. Eventually after about 1 hour it gets to a black screen and I get an error message saying DWM.exe has crashed. I've tried waiting even longer but it just gets stuck there. I've even tried pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del, sometimes it works but sometimes I get the error message saying unable to open security options. When I can get those options, I can open up task manager but it's very slow to respond and pushing the Services button does nothing and neither does trying to close explorer.exe(or restart it via new task) does nothing.
I can't even get into Safe Mode as it automatically restarts itself once it reaches a certain part of the safe mode logon process.
I even tried running Startup Recovery but the automatic tool can't fix the problem and I don't have any Systen Restore points to go back to
My Windows version is Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit SP1
Are there any suggestions on how to fix this without reinstalling Windows or formatting my system HDD?
I suspect it could be a malware/virus but I can't even get to the desktop to run any antivirus/diagnostics.