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Windows black screen last night

Firetastic
Firetastic Posts: 596 Forumite
in Techie Stuff
Windows Vista Home Basic.
Dell Inspiron 531

So yesterday evening I was using Firefox and I got the message shockwave player has crashed blah blah blah. So after eventually getting Firefox to shut down I open it up to do some more stuff. I then close it down and decide to shut computer down.

Of course there is 13 updates. I click on the button to install updates and shut Windows down. I go away to do something else, come back to it and it on a black screen with the cursor on the screen. I shut it down by pressing power button and switch it back on and it seemed fine. This morning it fired up fine and I'm using it fine now.

The one thing I've noticed is the updates haven't been installed. What caused the black screen out of interest?
«1

Comments

  • bod1467
    bod1467 Posts: 15,214 Forumite
    Go to Windows Update and choose the View Update History option. See if that tells you anything.
  • Firetastic
    Firetastic Posts: 596 Forumite
    I've done that and the only thing that was installed was an update for Microsoft Security Essentials. Strange.
  • Oblivion
    Oblivion Posts: 20,248 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic
    I did the windows updates on our three W7 machines. After a restart they all paused for quite a long time on a black screen with just the cursor showing before finally completing the boot up into windows.


    I think that one or more of the updates needed time to configure windows. All of the updates were successful in our case.
    ... Dave
    Happily retired and enjoying my 14th year of leisure
    I am cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
    Bring me sunshine in your smile
  • Strider590
    Strider590 Posts: 11,874 Forumite
    edited 13 November 2014 at 12:37PM
    Black screen with cursor = Windows Explorer has not started yet (or has crashed), you can try alt+ctrl+del and start explorer manually via "new task" and entering "explorer".

    Black screen with nothing on screen at all = Graphics driver has usually crashed and failed to reinitialise.
    “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an a** of yourself.”

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  • GunJack
    GunJack Posts: 11,947 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    vista can be a tw*t for crashing/hanging during windows update... you're lucky that the system rebooted ok after you did the hard shutdown, I've lost count of the number of vista systems I've had to reinstall after people did the same as you :)
    ......Gettin' There, Wherever There is......

    I have a dodgy "i" key, so ignore spelling errors due to "i" issues, ...I blame Apple :D
  • Strider590
    Strider590 Posts: 11,874 Forumite
    GunJack wrote: »
    vista can be a tw*t

    FTFY :cool:
    “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an a** of yourself.”

    <><><><><><><><><<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Don't forget to like and subscribe \/ \/ \/
  • Firetastic
    Firetastic Posts: 596 Forumite
    Well just to update forgive the pun. The updates are back waiting to be downloaded. I'll try again just before I settle down to watch "The Fall" I usually go away and leave it to update then I go to bed.
  • NiftyDigits
    NiftyDigits Posts: 10,459 Forumite
    Firetastic wrote: »
    Well just to update forgive the pun. The updates are back waiting to be downloaded. I'll try again just before I settle down to watch "The Fall" I usually go away and leave it to update then I go to bed.

    Did I suggest that you upgrade?
  • Firetastic
    Firetastic Posts: 596 Forumite
    edited 13 November 2014 at 8:07PM
    How do I stop these from installing? There's a symbol for updates where it says installs updates and shuts down computer. Absolutely dread installing these updates. Computer takes longer than usual to boot up in the morning.
  • NiftyDigits
    NiftyDigits Posts: 10,459 Forumite
    Firetastic wrote: »
    How do I stop these from installing? There's a symbol for updates where it says installs updates and shuts down computer. Absolutely dread installing these updates. Computer takes longer than usual to boot up in the morning.

    Have I suggested to you, previously, that you should upgrade?
This discussion has been closed.
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