Newest All In One Repair Beaten

[G_Mugford]

Hi all,

  I've posted this message over in Stack Overflow's SuperUser forum to no avail. For members here that are members there, I apologize for the cross-posting. The reason I'm posting the issue here is that the original occurrence of the issue WAS resolved by AIO Repair v1.01. But the re-occurrence of the issue has, so far, beaten the current (last two) versions of AIO Repair. I am stymied by all of this and would be thrilled to find out I'm doing something simple wrong. But I suspect I've got a unique issue with no easy solution. Please prove me wrong. And at rate, here's the (overly) detailed description of the issue:

I had a third NAS added to my home system this summer. At that time, I started to develop an issue wherein the start of my Win 7SP1 becomes a two-step process. MOST stuff seems to load immediately from my SSD. Then, about 16 minutes later, a couple of other programs plus the sidebar loads. It's a very consistent 16 minutes. I also don't have access to many system level processes until the later group of programs loads. For example, I can't uninstall programs via Windows Uninstaller or Revo Uninstaller. If I click on them, nothing SEEMS to happen. But when that 16 minutes expires, my screens become a riot of exploding opening windows ... if I've gotten click-happy. I 'repaired' this a while ago by running Tweaking.com's Windows Repair AIO. But, it seems to come back after just every Patch Tuesday. And after this most recent one, the Tweaking.com solution didn't resolve the issue. I'm prone to only rebooting about once every three weeks, so this isn't a life-and-death issue. But it is an itch I'd like to scratch.

From the Windows Event Viewer logs, I know DCOM fails early in the boot process. Says DCOM can't be found.I don't know specifically what files to look for manually. But I do see DCOM entries in the Window\PolicyDefinitions folder and a dcomcnfg file in Windows\System32 and in Windows\SysWOW64. Duplicates seem to appear in the winsxs sub-system. I don't see anything bizarre about the execute line: C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k DcomLaunch. And by the time I CAN look at services, it says DCOM's started and is automatic. The dependencies are through Remote Procedure Call. The only non-Windows services I can detect (not that I REALLY know what I'm doing) are Avast! AntiVirus, Google Update Service (gupdate) and Google Update Service (gupdatem). If I had to pick candidates, the Google Update Service would be high on the list.

After DCOM's initial failure, I get a warning about custom dynamic link libraries and then Service Control Manager logs that it is taking more than 4 minutes to start. Some 11 minutes later, it logs being hung ... then everything loads and everything works!! There is nothing in the log I can see where SCM then succeeds.

Here are entries from the log ...
Date: 11/14/2011 4:17:08 AM
Event Type: Error
Username:
Computer Name: Quincy
Source: DCOM
Event ID: 3221235482
Category: (0) -  Category Number: 0
Message: The description for Event ID '-1073731814' in Source 'DCOM' cannot be found.  The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display the message, or you may not have permission to access them.  The following information is part of the event:'{E10F6C3A-F1AE-4ADC-AA9D-2FE65525666E}'

Date: 11/14/2011 4:18:02 AM
Event Type: Warning
Username: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer Name: Quincy
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Wininit
Event ID: 11
Category: (0) -  Category Number: 0
Message: Custom dynamic link libraries are being loaded for every application. The system administrator should review the list of libraries to ensure they are related to trusted applications.

Date: 11/14/2011 4:22:19 AM
Event Type: Warning
Username:
Computer Name: Quincy
Source: Service Control Manager
Event ID: 2147490692
Category: (0) -  Category Number: 0
Message: The following service is taking more than 4 minutes to start and may have stopped responding: Server
Contact your system administrator or service vendor for approximate startup times for this service.
If you think this service might be slowing system response or logon time, talk to your system administrator about whether the service should be disabled until the problem is identified. You may have to restart the computer in safe mode before you can disable the service.

Date: 11/14/2011 4:33:19 AM
Event Type: Error
Username:
Computer Name: Quincy
Source: Service Control Manager
Event ID: 3221232494
Category: (0) -  Category Number: 0
Message: The Server service hung on starting.

Ideas?

Thanks in advance, GM

[Shane]

I use avast my self. Never seen this problem before but the fact that we have a perfect 16 min window before things work correctly makes me want to check 3 things right off the bat.

1. Since these services seem to be hung up waiting then lets look at what is able to stop programs from running. The Antivirus. Its a long shot, I personally don't think it is avast but we need to cover all bases.

2. Windows has a delayed start set on some of the services. I haven't ever looked yet, but I wonder what the timeout value is for that.

3. You say the windows repair fixed this before. One thing the services need is access to the reg keys and files. If they don't then you are waiting for windows to timeout the service. But the old version didnt have access to all the keys, the new one does. So it should have helped more. Unless this is a new cause for this bug.

I have seen windows hang waiting for a command queue to finish, then everything comes loading up like mad.

So the trick now is to find out if it is a windows service or program, or a 3rd party program or service causing this.

Do the msconfig and disable all non ms services and then all non ms programs at startup. If the problem still happens then we know we need to look at drivers and windows services.
If the problem doesn't happen then we know it is a 3rd party program

Lets go from there

Shane

[friedmonky]

I find it interesting that this problem started when the NAS was added.  I would remove the NAS and see if the problem still exists.

[G_Mugford]

Shane/friedmonky,

  Well, a solution has been found. A comment from techie007 over at SuperUser and Shane's reply here got me onto the right track. And, embarrassing as it is, it might have been easier for your folks to solve it directly if I hadn't left out a few details from my long-winded explanation of the problem. Seems I forgot I also did TWO other things at the time of the NAS issue. I also installed a honking huge Nortel switch (New, out of the box, despite the box being a little dusty) AND I moved a Samsung colour laser printer from being directly connected to my computer to the switch and then becoming available to the computers elsewhere in the house. Yes, I can see the light bulbs going off in your heads now.

  The solution was setting up the SPOOLER dependency to include lanmanserver.

  Serves me right. Out of sight, out of mind, despite a noise profile pretty similar to that of an aircraft carrier. A key detail forgotten. I remember setting up the printer on the other three computers and then forgetting about it completely. Well, other than to be annoyed when somebody wandered into my office to get some printout while I was doing something productive. But other than that ...

  Now, the only question that remains from this fiasco is, why did AIO Repair fix the issue that first time? It's an academic question and one I'm curious about. But the answer might be more serendipity than design. And raw, unadulterated luck rarely revisits the oblivious. If you want more info Shane, happy to oblige, given the time and effort responding here and participating in creating the program.

  Regards, GM

[Shane]

Now, the only question that remains from this fiasco is, why did AIO Repair fix the issue that first time? It's an academic question and one I'm curious about. But the answer might be more serendipity than design. And raw, unadulterated luck rarely revisits the oblivious. If you want more info Shane, happy to oblige, given the time and effort responding here and participating in creating the program.

Perhaps it was a different cause of the problem before. The windows repair wouldn't have fixed this as I make sure the program doesn't change registry keys. Thats to dangerous. Also why it will never be a perfect windows repair. If the reg keys get changed or screwed the only option is manual repair or windows reinstall. Simply to dangerous to have my program messing with the core deep keys in windows.

The windows repair does change very few reg keys. Such as removing policies by infections, and the firewall repair putting some defaults back.
The reg key values may grow or be added to the program but only the safest ones.

I think your problem before was more of a permissions issue and the repair tool took care of it

Shane