Posted January 04, 2023
I'm having a terrible problem and would appreciate any advice that anyone might have! I've been using Linux Mint 20 with Cinnamon for a long time now, and I have it installed on a few partitions of a drive which also has Windows 10 Professional. I've installed it on various occasions and it never interfered with Windows in any way. Now I just reinstalled it on one partition, and I updated GRUB and everything the usual way, so that's all fine, and all Linux partitions boot and work fine (except that the new one can't access the Internet for some reason, but I'm not sure why).
But now when I boot Windows it doesn't work! I didn't alter that partition at all (it's not even adjacent to the partition that I changed), and GRUB is still doing its job fine, but when Windows loads it just gets to where it displays the desktop as plain wallpaper with no icons, and the taskbar with very little on it, and wherever I click, if it has any effect at all it just fades the screen lighter and turns the cursor into a spinning blue circle. Then if I click again sometimes it goes back to normal but just alternates between those two states. I also can't access the Start menu. I can do Ctrl-Alt-Del but I can just sign out, and if I try to display the Task Manager nothing happens. If I sign out it always says that it needs to end tasks before I do, or I can force it, but it seems to be different tasks every time and I don't recognize them. I'm CERTAIN there's no virus or anything like that, and this started happening right after I reformatted the other partition and reinstalled Linux Mint.
I looked up some information and found that it might be some problem with the user profile settings having gotten messed up somehow, or something like that, so that the profile still exists and can log in but has no access to any files or anything. It suggested to go into safe mode and change some things, but when I got into safe mode, I had the same problem, except that the wallpaper looks black, and when the cursor starts spinning I get a message that wants me to end a task, though either it doesn't specify what the task is, or it's referring to Windows itself - I'm not sure which. If I do end the task nothing happens and it goes back to how it was, and I can tell it numerous times in a row to end the task and still nothing happens.
I could try a startup recovery option but I'm not sure whether that would do any good or not, though I hope it wouldn't make anything worse by simply changing some fundamental options in a way that might somehow not be appropriate for the circumstances.
I should point out that I already had an annoying problem that when I pressed the Window key (between Ctrl and Alt) it would show an error that expected me to sign out (though I could leave the error on the screen and go about my business until I was ready to restart), and I don't remember whether clicking the Start menu worked but it might have caused the same error. I think it was caused by some weird shut down or something going wrong once, but I don't remember what, and it never caused any other problems than that. I wasn't sure how to fix it, and I never really bothered, because I only use Windows for playing games, so I just install them, use the shortcuts that I need and pretty much ignore everything else.
But now I'm wondering whether that's the reason why the start menu doesn't work while I'm encountering this problem, or whether it wouldn't work anyway (since nothing else does, either).
So anyway, does anyone have any idea what to do? I'd really like to avoid having to reinstall Windows, because if I do that then I'll probably have to take it into the shop to have it done, since I'm not sure whether I have the proper validation code (these days it seems like they don't want people to be able to authenticate their own copies of Windows, and they only trust the OEMs and other such professionals to do it - stupid, unconscionable Microsoft!).
But now when I boot Windows it doesn't work! I didn't alter that partition at all (it's not even adjacent to the partition that I changed), and GRUB is still doing its job fine, but when Windows loads it just gets to where it displays the desktop as plain wallpaper with no icons, and the taskbar with very little on it, and wherever I click, if it has any effect at all it just fades the screen lighter and turns the cursor into a spinning blue circle. Then if I click again sometimes it goes back to normal but just alternates between those two states. I also can't access the Start menu. I can do Ctrl-Alt-Del but I can just sign out, and if I try to display the Task Manager nothing happens. If I sign out it always says that it needs to end tasks before I do, or I can force it, but it seems to be different tasks every time and I don't recognize them. I'm CERTAIN there's no virus or anything like that, and this started happening right after I reformatted the other partition and reinstalled Linux Mint.
I looked up some information and found that it might be some problem with the user profile settings having gotten messed up somehow, or something like that, so that the profile still exists and can log in but has no access to any files or anything. It suggested to go into safe mode and change some things, but when I got into safe mode, I had the same problem, except that the wallpaper looks black, and when the cursor starts spinning I get a message that wants me to end a task, though either it doesn't specify what the task is, or it's referring to Windows itself - I'm not sure which. If I do end the task nothing happens and it goes back to how it was, and I can tell it numerous times in a row to end the task and still nothing happens.
I could try a startup recovery option but I'm not sure whether that would do any good or not, though I hope it wouldn't make anything worse by simply changing some fundamental options in a way that might somehow not be appropriate for the circumstances.
I should point out that I already had an annoying problem that when I pressed the Window key (between Ctrl and Alt) it would show an error that expected me to sign out (though I could leave the error on the screen and go about my business until I was ready to restart), and I don't remember whether clicking the Start menu worked but it might have caused the same error. I think it was caused by some weird shut down or something going wrong once, but I don't remember what, and it never caused any other problems than that. I wasn't sure how to fix it, and I never really bothered, because I only use Windows for playing games, so I just install them, use the shortcuts that I need and pretty much ignore everything else.
But now I'm wondering whether that's the reason why the start menu doesn't work while I'm encountering this problem, or whether it wouldn't work anyway (since nothing else does, either).
So anyway, does anyone have any idea what to do? I'd really like to avoid having to reinstall Windows, because if I do that then I'll probably have to take it into the shop to have it done, since I'm not sure whether I have the proper validation code (these days it seems like they don't want people to be able to authenticate their own copies of Windows, and they only trust the OEMs and other such professionals to do it - stupid, unconscionable Microsoft!).
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