Windows 8 Windows 8.1 Pro x64 help needed

brkkab

Excellent Member
My pc has developed a weird issue lately. When I try to open pc settings in Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center x64, as soon as it opens, the window disappears. It still shows up in the top left corner of my screen, but it just says PC Settings and shows nothing. My Windows 8.1 x64 laptop doesn't have this issue. Bitdefender Internet Security 2015, SUPERAntiSpyware Pro and Malwarebytes free have found no threats on my pc. Not even with safe mode scans. All my drivers and software are up to date.
 
I did that before I posted and nothing was found. I'm currently in Windows 10 TP on VirtualBox. In Windows 8.1 Pro I've got it running Trend Micro House Call right now. I'm stumped on this.
 
Have you had an opportunity to check what happens if you boot the PC into Safe Mode? Does the problem still persist?
Easiest way is to use msconfig boot tab to configure safemode and to reverse it back to normal mode as you're having problems with PC Settings.
 
Tried that too. Same thing. I lost my internet 2 1/2 months ago and got it back Tuesday. I was thus unupdated until Tuesday night on everything, as AT&T took over 6 hours to wire the internet to my house.
 
I'm wondering if it possibly was one of the updates to either Windows or Office 365. Windows got like 42 updates, as I missed August & September's updates. Java, Firefox, Flash Player for Firefox, SUPERAntiSpyware Pro and Bitdefender Internet Security 2015 all had updated versions. Nvidia also had updated video card drivers. Steam also had a update.
 
House Call also found nothing. My home page in IE11 has now changed from bing.com to about.blank. I keep changing it back to bing.com, close it, reopen it to find about.blank again.
 
It seems to point towards Personalisation and your choice of picture/background. Perhaps you could play with those settings and see if anything useful happens.
Not forgetting. Those settings are also linked to graphic capability. have you tried updating your graphic driver or even , if your suspicion is correct, rolling back to before a possible graphic driver update.

Cancelling. I wrote at the same time as your preceding post.Deepens the problem somewhat.

You have been hijacked, as bassfisher's says in a following post. Have a look through your add-ons first, and see if there is anything suspicious there.
 
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Yes, I was, also, going to ask for a screen shot, please. Thanks.

Cheers,
Drew
Windows 10OS.jpg
 
I forgot all about running HijackThis. It's on my pc. As far as a screenshot. I can get one of IE 11, but not of the blank power settings window. It only stays on my screen for a few seconds and only appears if I point my mouse in the top left corner of my screen. That's how I've closed it every time it does the red screen just saying PC Settings. Running HijackThis! now.
 
HijackThis! only puts a X near Internet Explorer 11. Which was updated Tuesday. Every time I've run HijackThis! since Windows 8 came out, it's always put the X on Internet Explorer. Im guessing it's a false positive.
 
Now before I even went to Virustotal's site, Bing is back as my homepage in IE 11. Both versions of iexplorer.exe (32 & 64 bit) came up clean at Virustotal 0 out 54 for both. I'm gonna give Norton Power Eraser a run. Does anyone know if Panda still hasit's ActiveScan ?
 
I'm running Eset's Online Scanner now. So far it's found a variant of Win32/Systweak.H & Win32/OpenCandy . It's only about 22 % done. Also Bitdefender just put out a new version of Internet Security 2015. I'm installing it on my laptop now. I'll install it on the problem pc after Eset's done and I restart it.
 
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Bing is back to being my homepage. After that happened Eset found threats with 7 in total and quarantined them all. The PC Settings still doesn't show anything, other than it Saying PC Settings and the window closing from view after 5-10 seconds. As soon as I click on new in the Snipping Tool the window disappears. OK, I got one of the PC Settings with print screen & Paint.
 

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