I would really appreciate if someone could help me out of a terrible computer jam. These are the symptoms of this nightmare scenario...
1) Turning on the computer (Win8) everything is good. Sign-in screen comes up, I sign in, but instead of the tiles window that I see, the screen is black.

2) I can summon up the task manager, but everything seems normal.

My sister-in-law who works with computers gave me a work around by creating a new user, but the problem is...I am using FL Studio and now all of the vst and vsti that are installed are no longer registered because I am now a new user.

I feel somewhat diminished by this loss. I didn't realize until this very moment how much I define myself by the software that I use. Thank goodness that I have my guitars, piano and other assorted instruments, however not having access to others in the box is pushing me into a strange melancholy.

Does anybody have an explanation why I lost my user account and what I can do to return it?

Thanks a bunch in advance. I hope that the braintrust can come up with a solution. I am not very literate come time to play with code and the like, so I am at the mercy of the pro users who can and do.

Namaste.

 

Sorry for the stupid question but can't you register again all your tools in your new profile?

 

Start in safe mode,first scan with malwarebytes,then go programs,system tools and restore your pc to an earlier date,two,three days back should be ok.
If that doesnt work then it may be a corrupted windows boot file.

 

n̶o̶t̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶s̶e̶r̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶u̶g̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶S̶t̶a̶r̶t̶ ̶M̶e̶n̶u̶ ̶f̶o̶l̶d̶e̶r̶
that sounded presumptuous.

what I mean is one possible reason, that is not as serious as a corrupted boot file as suggested by our friend Von_Steyr, is a bug...

safe mode or login as admin
go to C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs and delete everything there except the Startup folder.
Or just move if you don't want to delete. They aren't program files so it won't hurt anything.

USERNAME is the old userprofile we are trying to recover.

 

Last edited: Jul 13, 2016

Do you recall any substantial change you made to your system prior to the issue ?
Some program you installed perhaps before the BLACK SOD ?
Or this just happened spontaneously without any twiddling? Sometimes reversing recent changes can bring the system back to where you were before. If you can get to system restore somehow..and you have restore points,
that would be a good suggestion also per @Von_Steyr.

@Diabulus in Musica he's been around for a while you see..
would you like to re-auth 10,000 plugins?

 

Thanks for everybody posting suggestions, I heartedly appreciate it.

As Herr Durr said, I have been around the block for a while, and though I certainly should cut it WAY down, I do have a shipload of things that would take me like forever to re-auth. I am hoping to find a way around that chore.

I cannot think of anything that I did to warrent this. Everything is all in place. Foolishly I have no restore point, a very foolish and dweebish move that I am paying for now dearly. I am utterly chastisable on this point.

We have guests arriving tomorrow and I have lots to do; cleaning the house, shopping, ferrying my daughter around, etc, but I will try @Pinkman 's suggestion as soon as I have a little time to devote to his idea.

Thanks again to you all. I will let you know how it goes when I can.

 

I very much feel your pain !!!
Sorry I cant offer anything new but agree @Von_Steyr's 'solution' would seem to make sense if you can do that.
Hoping to hear good news soon...

edit: oh just saw your latest post about restore points which crossed when i was typing . It may not seem much of a consolation right now but when something like that has happened to me in the past at least i had the chance to start off 'new' again and only reinstall things i used regularly etc instead of having a lot of 'dead wood' all over the hard drive. small comfort i know

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 13, 2016

Did you tried to "summon" explorer from task manager? (run new task -> C:/ -> windows -> explorer.exe)

 

The other thing i did one time was i bought one of those little USB hard drive duplicators from ebay for like $30 and a new internal hard drive and cloned my whole computer. i know it may have been taking things a bit far in terms of backing up but i did have a hard drive fail one time after that so i just swapped the old for the cloned new hard drive and had it running again with what i had installed at the time of the duplication. Its one possible idea for the future? Still hoping you can get thing back to normal though !

 

That has probably happened to millions of Windows users over the years (including me, but not in a long while - thank goodness). Here's a link that might prove helpful in getting your settings back using a Registry fix. Take a look: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/947215 Hope that it either puts you on the right track, or solves your problem.

 

Last edited: Jul 13, 2016

Sounds like a corrupted user profile. Not too uncommon, I've had it occur several times with different users. Most fixes involve copying the associated files for the profile to a new user account. Not sure how this would affect VST registration as those registrations are likely stored in the registry. The Forensit User Profile Wizard may copy more information. I wouldn't delete anything from the corrupt profile until I tried several of the copying techniques as non-destructive restoration is usually the best choice.

 

Sounds stupid, but I have two computers with all the important programs I have on them, such that when one goes down, at the least appropriate time, I can just take my time and try to figure out wtf happened.

Remember, if you don't air gap your computers from the net, (have a throwaway laptop for web stuff, like I do) what you perceive as a random event, could be just a friendly hack, from anything from the programs you have running to a random guy in Romania.

Good luck. Suspend disbelief and consider the possibility it's not too hard to fix...even in grad school, every problem I faced that looked hard, I always went, oh fk, I'm dead, and then I always said right after, suspend disbelief, it may be doable, so let's try this, and this, until, always to my shock and amazement, something always worked.

BTW, restore point created, both computers...

Your worst case scenario is just that it takes a long time to reinstall everything. I promise you it's the best exercise to protecting from a future problem. You will never work with computers the same again.

• The worst that has happened to me, is my 'reg log on acct' goes wacky, I always have a guest log on acct.
• [edit] I forgot, then I download something like avast or AVG and have the computer swept for viruses and Malwarebytes anti malware, cause I like to waste time. From the guest acct.
• Then I delete avast or AVG cause they super hump your computer for usage data all the time.
• I use Comodo firewall most of the time for the net computer cause it's light.
• From the guest log on with admin rights, I restore to a past date. Worked twice already this year. mofos.

I also don't have password protection on computers in my own freakin house, cause I'm not a sick security perv. There's no reason for passwords in your own freakin house. Unless the cats know more than we know...

 

Last edited: Jul 13, 2016

Did you tried to "summon" explorer from task manager? (run new task -> C:/ -> windows -> explorer.exe)

Can do, that is how Elif was able to zip around and to create a new user named after my dog, Marley.

 

Try to login with the administration account, and try to run the registry, and export some 'folders' that contain some audio-related data.