Windows 8 Desktop/Tiles wont display, Task Manager wont start, "Microsoft Windows is not responding"

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LucidDev

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My brother said his computer was lagging to he shut off his computer, and when he turned it back on, nothing would load; I turned the computer on and it logs into the user but none of the tiles will load. It takes me straight to a black screen with a bar at the bottom, and after about 45 seconds it brings up a window with the title "Microsoft Windows" and tells me its not responding, and asks to either end the process or wait - this doesn't allow clicks, it gives me the hourglass icon.

Ctrl+Alt+Del brings up the menu, and logging out/restarting hangs, clicking "Lock" successfully locks, but after clicking and logging in, it goes straight back to the black screen.

Pressing alt+tab brings up two-four windows but none of them have titles when filtering through

pressing f8 on start doesn't bring up safe mode (I'm used to windows 7)

pressing shift+f8 doesn't do anything either
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L
Thank you guys, I was able to get the computer to stay active long enough to reboot into safe mode and uninstalled all software installed in the last 3 days. This seems to have fixed the problem, and seeing as all of it was that PC Optimizer/Registry Cleaner scareware rubbish I'm pretty sure that this was the problem - simply couldn't get into the computer to see if this was there or not. The problem is now resolved, and I thank both of you for the active replies and help
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For some reason, it decided to magically work. I decided to restart it /one more time/ to be prudent, and it loaded without problems. I have no idea what I did, but if anyone has thoughts about what happened or what triggered this please let me know in case this happens again

Edit:
It loaded but navigating to the desktop made it all freeze up again. So frustrated!
 
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My guess and this is just a guess, is your brother had some piece of software opened and running when he shutdown the PC and from the sound of it, the shut down, probably a hard shutdown. Which sometimes can cause the system to responded in such a way that it needed a few reboots to get it back in order. It happens.

Worst case scenario, a system file will become corrupt and missing and running sfc /scannow in a cmd prompt will fix it and if not, a system restore and if that doesn't work, a last ditch effort is a system refresh.
 
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Try checking the Events log, found via the control panel or right click in the bottom left hand corner and from the revealed menu click Event viewer.
 
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kemical said:
Try checking the Events log, found via the control panel or right click in the bottom left hand corner and from the revealed menu click Event viewer.
Click to expand...

Attempting to load anything locks up the desktop, going back to the tiles and then clicking on Desktop (or anything that would pull up the desktop) does nothing. Is there a way to view them on the boot screen?

Edit: I /finally/ got the Event Viewer to open up without the desktop freezing, and as bassfisher suggested, my brother did infact do a hard shutdown as this all happened. I'm not seeing any other critical problems, in the "error" category, under the "Last hour" column, there are 135 counted, however I can't find where to export any of these at.
 
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It was a hard shutdown, even though the tiles load now, doing anything on the desktop makes it freeze, and going back to the tiles and re-launching the desktop does nothing, just stays at the tiles. Are there any recovery disks out there that are targeted at Windows 8 that I can at least do a system restore with? Little frustrated with Microsoft for removing the ease of access to safe mode
 
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Hi,

open the charms bar and click on settings, change pc settings and then General. You will then see the screen I've posted below. I've arrowed different options which might interest you. The one at the very bottom, Advanced Start up, will get you into safe mode. The others will return the os back to factory defaults.

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Thank you guys, I was able to get the computer to stay active long enough to reboot into safe mode and uninstalled all software installed in the last 3 days. This seems to have fixed the problem, and seeing as all of it was that PC Optimizer/Registry Cleaner scareware rubbish I'm pretty sure that this was the problem - simply couldn't get into the computer to see if this was there or not. The problem is now resolved, and I thank both of you for the active replies and help
 
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