Laptop stuck on home screen
Having Windows get stuck on the Welcome screen and prevent you from using your computer is a very frustrating experience. This guide will walk you through some fixes to help get you back to your desktop when this happens. Show
A simple solution to try is unplugging all external devices from your computer:Sometimes this issue can be caused by hardware issues, often USB devices.(These steps likely won’t apply if using a laptop.) To see if this is the case, do the following:
Often these issues are temporary and you may be able to use Windows normally again after plugging everything back in. If not, the next fix is more likely to work. Running Startup Repair can often solve this issue:When you encounter an issue that prevents you from fully starting up Windows, Startup Repair can usually fix it. Startup Repair can be accessed either from Windows’ built in Recovery Environment, or from repair or installation media. There are two methods for accessing the Recovery Environment:
The other method to get to the recovery environment:
If neither of these methods brings up recovery options, you will need to use installation or recovery media:Installation media is usually either a DVD or a USB drive that came with your computer or was purchased for installing Windows. There are also recovery disks and drives that can either come with your computer or be created in Windows 10. Using either of these can often work even if built in recovery did not. You can skip ahead to the section on using recovery or installation media if you already have one of them. If you do not already have either of these, you can create a recovery drive on a working Windows 10 computer:
Now depending on what you are using, follow one of the sets of steps below.
If none of the methods for using Startup Repair solve the issue, running a series of system checks and fixes may work:This can be done from Command Prompt from built in recovery, or either recovery or installation media. So first get to the Advanced options screen: And when you are in Advanced options:
If you’re still unable to get past the Welcome screen, using System Restore may fix things:This can also be done from the Advanced options screen reached through the previous methods:
If the restoration worked, Windows should now start normally and allow you to access your desktop and all your files and programs again. Hopefully this guide has helped get past being stuck on the Welcome screen. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat do you do when Ctrl Alt Del doesn’t work?If your PC is stuck to such a degree that pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del doesn’t do anything, then you might have no choice but to force it to shut down by long-pressing the power button. Sadly, you might get some corrupted files if you were in the middle of something, but it has been stuck for a long time, there’s really not anything else you can do. However, if your computer works fine but nothing shows up when you’re pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del, then the problem lies elsewhere. You can try using the Registry Editor by pressing Windows + R and then typing regedit in the command box. Press Enter and you’re now using the Registry Editor. In the left pane navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem. If the mentioned key doesn’t exist, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies. Right-click Policies and choose New > Key. Enter the System as the name of the new key. Once you create a System key, navigate to it. Now from the right panel of Registry find DisableTaskMgr and double click it to open its properties. If this DWORD isn’t available, right-click the right pane and choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value to create it. Enter DisableTaskMgr as the name of the DWORD. Set the value data to 0 and click on OK to save changes. Finally, restart your computer and that should be it. What is the cause of “not responding?”Malfunctioning hardware can, in some cases, cause the software interacting with it to fail in ways making it unresponsive. For example, a USB reader or thumb drive might experience a failure such that the next program to attempt to access it, even just to see if it exists, might end up with “Not Responding.” Other times it might be that the software itself is corrupted and you’ll have to fix it or reinstall it. Or maybe you have run out of RAM to execute a certain task. Or the processor is at full capacity. The truth is that the issue can be a lot more complicated than it seems at first. |