Windows 7 Temporary Blank Icons at Sartup

JohnVine

Senior Member
Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere. I tried searching for it but only found posts unrelated to my situation.

I have a fairly dated installation. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit with Service Pack 1.

What the system has started doing is booting at a normal speed. It gets to what looks like a working desktop but if I wait a short time (maybe 30 seconds at most) suddenly the desktop icons and the Taskbar icons will go to generic blank white forms while the drive becomes very busy. It takes roughly another 30 to 40 seconds for the icons to become reestablished and then all works normal. I could go on using the system like this without much inconvenience but I am curious if anyone else has experienced this issue and found a solution. Thanks for any help or information.
John
 
Blinking shortcuts have also been connected with malware / virus. No panic, I would say, but a complete scan with your AV would hardly harm, as well as one with Malwarebytes.

Is it your drive going busy, or is it your CPU - of course, these are related? You may have some background programs running? This you can check by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del > Start Task Manager

You can also manage your starting programs with http://www.snapfiles.com/get/startdelay.html or other similar software. They delay the startup of secondary programs - but I'm not sure this is your case. It depends...

Anyways, best of all.
 
Blinking shortcuts have also been connected with malware / virus. No panic, I would say, but a complete scan with your AV would hardly harm, as well as one with Malwarebytes.

Is it your drive going busy, or is it your CPU - of course, these are related? You may have some background programs running? This you can check by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del > Start Task Manager

You can also manage your starting programs with http://www.snapfiles.com/get/startdelay.html or other similar software. They delay the startup of secondary programs - but I'm not sure this is your case. It depends...

Anyways, best of all.

Thanks for the suggestions (both of you who replied). I will give the system a thorough scan with Malwarebytes and if that makes no difference I will try out StartDelay. Regards, John
 
Do give feedback. I just remembered I had an AV program that took up to more than 90% of CPU, practically stalling my computer - and it was a friendly, good program. Unfortunately I can't remember which it was. It worked well for a lot of people, but not me.

You can see in Processes in Task Manager, if you have a Great White eating... it will probably not show in any scans, as it is friendly by nature. It's just chewing your CPU.

Not trying to scare, okay?
 
Do give feedback. I just remembered I had an AV program that took up to more than 90% of CPU, practically stalling my computer - and it was a friendly, good program. Unfortunately I can't remember which it was. It worked well for a lot of people, but not me.

You can see in Processes in Task Manager, if you have a Great White eating... it will probably not show in any scans, as it is friendly by nature. It's just chewing your CPU.

Not trying to scare, okay?

Well it seems it turned out to be couple of MIcrosoft Services at the root of this issue and it looks like I am going to have to live with this problem until I decide to reinstall the OS. Using MSConfig and doing the laborius process of rebooting with some services turned off in order to narrow it down to the real culprits it turns out that both Internet Explorer ETW Collector Service and DHCP Client Service will produce this effect. I have the IE Collector Service currently turned off but I need that DHCP Client service in order to get online with my cable provider. So, like I said, I am stuck with it for now. If anyone has an explanation as to why this is happening due to either of these two services I would love to hear and learn. Thanks much. John
 
From what I read, it could actually be as simple as .NET, you need to update it. You can get it from http://www.microsoft.com/net, a safe Microsoft site.

It may even have to do with Java... check the latest version, http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp

It is possible to close down the Services you mention, but I recommend against it. They are somewhat crucial. You do have latest Windows updates?

... a bit like chopping wood in moonlight with sunglasses on...
 
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