Black screen on windows 10

[Josquius]

I just turned on my computer, it installed a windows update and seemed to be all working normally. I logged in as usual.

After I login though...I have a black screen (it could be desktop background which is just a black screen). The cursor is there. But nothing else.
I try ctrl+alt+del and launching explorer.exe... no dice. Launching chrome.exe in this way -> Works perfectly, I'm online.

I restart in safe mode and...all is looking OK. One odd thing here though, windows update won't open. I click on it and it flashes up and doesn't appear. Otherwise all appears normal on safe mode.

Any idea what could be going on and how I can get things working right again?
I had cc cleaner installed, which googling suggests can cause troubles, though I haven't done any registry deletes with it.

[viper37]

I just turned on my computer, it installed a windows update and seemed to be all working normally. I logged in as usual.

After I login though...I have a black screen (it could be desktop background which is just a black screen). The cursor is there. But nothing else.
I try ctrl+alt+del and launching explorer.exe... no dice. Launching chrome.exe in this way -> Works perfectly, I'm online.

I restart in safe mode and...all is looking OK. One odd thing here though, windows update won't open. I click on it and it flashes up and doesn't appear. Otherwise all appears normal on safe mode.

Any idea what could be going on and how I can get things working right again?
I had cc cleaner installed, which googling suggests can cause troubles, though I haven't done any registry deletes with it.

hmm, could be a driver issue.

Try these:
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-fix-black-screen-problems-windows-10

https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/fix-windows-10-black-screen-with-cursor-error/

[Josquius]

I suspected drivers too. Tried uninstalling my graphics driver and restarted, after many minutes everything appeared.

Today I booted up though and things were screwed up. Windows firewall said its settings were wrong and it wouldn't open.

I've tried to reset windows, there was a lot of gunk on there anyway, hopefully it will help.

[DontSayBanana]

I suspected drivers too. Tried uninstalling my graphics driver and restarted, after many minutes everything appeared.

Today I booted up though and things were screwed up. Windows firewall said its settings were wrong and it wouldn't open.

I've tried to reset windows, there was a lot of gunk on there anyway, hopefully it will help.

Windows Firewall usually fails to start because something else is telling the OS "nah, no need for a second firewall- I got this." This smells like a virus/malware to me.

[Josquius]

I suspected drivers too. Tried uninstalling my graphics driver and restarted, after many minutes everything appeared.

Today I booted up though and things were screwed up. Windows firewall said its settings were wrong and it wouldn't open.

I've tried to reset windows, there was a lot of gunk on there anyway, hopefully it will help.

Windows Firewall usually fails to start because something else is telling the OS "nah, no need for a second firewall- I got this." This smells like a virus/malware to me.

That was my suspicion, but I've been paranoid lately, and virus scanned to hell and found nothing.

Reset of windows seems fine so far.

[CountDeMoney]

You have Nvidia cards by chance?  When I upgraded, I had horrible black screens because it reset my graphics cards to run SLI for 3D--which I don't have--and that was an absolute disaster until I went in and disabled SLI again. 

[Josquius]

You have Nvidia cards by chance?  When I upgraded, I had horrible black screens because it reset my graphics cards to run SLI for 3D--which I don't have--and that was an absolute disaster until I went in and disabled SLI again. 

Yes.
Interesting, will investigate that one.

[DontSayBanana]

You have Nvidia cards by chance?  When I upgraded, I had horrible black screens because it reset my graphics cards to run SLI for 3D--which I don't have--and that was an absolute disaster until I went in and disabled SLI again. 

Yeah, that's a good catch. Video cards require such low-level operations that bad video card drivers can fuck with your computer in ways that other drivers typically can't.

[viper37]

I suspected drivers too. Tried uninstalling my graphics driver and restarted, after many minutes everything appeared.

Today I booted up though and things were screwed up. Windows firewall said its settings were wrong and it wouldn't open.

I've tried to reset windows, there was a lot of gunk on there anyway, hopefully it will help.

Windows Firewall usually fails to start because something else is telling the OS "nah, no need for a second firewall- I got this." This smells like a virus/malware to me.

That was my suspicion, but I've been paranoid lately, and virus scanned to hell and found nothing.

Reset of windows seems fine so far.

Many virus can bypass anti-virus engine built for Windows.
use a "rescue" scanner, like Eset Rescue disk, or Kaspersky, Avira, etc.

[Josquius]

Here comes my paranoia again :p

I tried avira but I can't get it to work. I can boot into it fine but it doesn't detect that my computer is detected to my router and it needs an internet connection to work.
It also says something about my computer being in hibernate mode when I press the wizard button.

I tried kapersky once before I believe but couldn't get it to boot. It doesn't like modern bios iirc.

ESET says nothing about windows 10 compatability and always fails to compile,

I'm really suspecting the firewall stuff might have been my doing during my last spell of paranoia and playing with settings,, plus a old and imperfect install on top of windows 7. Still, would be nice to get one of these boot scans working in case I do have something nasty. I need to do some internet banking.

[DGuller]

I personally wouldn't use Kaspersky.  I'm sure FSB can get inside my computer if it really wants to, but it seems like using an anti-virus from their front company is making their job too easy.

[Josquius]

Anyone ever tried something called tron script?
Seems interesting but trying it on my laptop my anti virus really doesn't like it...

[viper37]

I personally wouldn't use Kaspersky.  I'm sure FSB can get inside my computer if it really wants to, but it seems like using an anti-virus from their front company is making their job too easy.

I wouldn't use it if I were Russian.  I wouldn't pay for it.  but their free USB software is ok.

[viper37]

Anyone ever tried something called tron script?
Seems interesting but trying it on my laptop my anti virus really doesn't like it...

Never heard of it before today...

Re: USB boot av, they usually use a Linux 2.x Kernel to run their stuff.  These are incompatible with recent video cards and motherboards and cpus.  I my Ryzen 5 with a RX 470, I can't get many of them to run.

However, there is AVG, wich uses a non GUI scanner:
https://www.avg.com/en-ca/download.prd-arl

You either need a wired internet connection, or you download the definition files and upgrades to your USB stick and make the updates from there once inside the Anti-virus.

I like using Sardu (www.sarducd.it) and run multiple Linux OS and AV rescue from there.  If one does not work on a recent computer, another one will.