Question : Vista stays at Welcome screen

A friend of mine has brought her laptop to me. Dell, running Vista Basic.

After it asks the password it stays stuck on the welcome screen and doesn't actually load up properly.

As soon as she left it with me I was able to start it up properly, so I ran CCleaner, I ran Malwarebytes. All OK. I tried to install MS's safety.live, but stopped at the point of installing the scanner tools. I tries system restore and it has a problem and brings up the "0x80070005" error.  However when choosing the restore data it had 25th (Xmas day!) there was a Windows update. She also said it was running very slowly on Friday.

She also has Norton 360 installed.

I have Googled the error message (adn looked on E-E) and I reckon the problem is all related to the Windows update on Friday.

I am now unable to boot it normally, just sticks on the Welcome screen but it will go into Safe mode.

I have run Vista Repair from the original DVD, but it had no effect.

All suggestions welcomed

Answer : Vista stays at Welcome screen

I have experienced a similar situation today which cannot be fixed by system restore of Vista.

I can launch the notebook in safe mode and my problem is caused by defective anti-virus software (Symantec Endpoint in my case).

The fix is to do a chkdsk /r in windows recovery environment, disable the service in relation to the anti-virus software in safe mode, start again in normal mode and remove anti-virus software and install anti-virus software again.

So, I guess that windows update has crashed with anti-virus software and has corrupted the user profile afterwards.