Resolved Programs won't open after being idle

Hello,

My Windows 7 Home Premium has developed a new wrinkle. When I walk away from the computer, and it is left idle for a few hours, when I come back to use it, nothing responds. I tried to open a program, the hour glass shows for a second or two, then disappears, and the program never opens. Can't open browsers, or anything, not even task manager.

The only solution I've found so far is to shut down and reboot. Sometimes I can click on "restart" but most of the time I have to physically shut down and reboot. The only exception is when I am done checking my e-mails and doing anything else I want to do, I can then tell the PC to shutdown, and it does with no problem. But if I walk away, come back 3 hours later and try to click on shutdown, it doesn't work any better than anything else, so I must physically shut it down.

Any suggestions??

Thank you,
Sandie

 

I was experiencing this recently and my virus software and malware didn't find anything. Turns out though that I somehow got a google toolbar virus by just mousing over on some website. ESET online scanner found the virus and Broni in the malware section is currently helping me to remove it. Not sure if it is the same problem but my pc was reacting similar.

 

Hello Hepl,

I just checked you post and Broni's answers. If I have to do all of that, I would be better off doing a system restore, IMO, because I couldn't understand a lot of what I saw there. And I would be terrified of "trying" this and that, not being absolutely certain it would work. Just seeing it all there in your thread terrified me. LOL Whatever my problem is, I hope it's something simple, or I'm just going to buy a new computer. This one is over 8 years old anyway. LOL

Thank you,
Sandie

 

It isn't as hard as it looks. The programs that are used do all the work.

 

Thank you Mr Bill,

At least that is a little reassuring. I really think the problem is something else though. I just checked the "properties" for my C drive, and discovered that my 500 GB hard drive has only 3.6 GB of empty space. It seems that my computer is probably so overloaded, that it is no doubt heating up after being on for a long time, and with the drive so crowded, it's more than likely it's moving uber slow, and not actually not responding. Just responding so slowly it seems to me it's doing nothing. And then when I reboot, it boots up "refreshed" so it works fine for a while.

I will be looking for a new computer and until I get one, I'll be shutting this one down until I need to use it again. If all I want is to take care of e-mails, I can do that on my tablet.

Thank you for your help though,
Sandie

 

You must have a lot of stuff on there if you only have 3.6GB out of 500GB left.
Do you have a bunch of music or movies saved on there? That is usually what takes up a lot of HD space. You could also do a Disc Cleanup from the Start Orb. Go to Accessories/System Tools/Disc Cleanup. Put a check in ALL the boxes then click OK and let it do it's thing.

 

Hello Mr. Bill,

Today, my computer is telling me a different story. Today when I opened the properties for the C drive, it says I am using only 188 GB, and there are 267 GB free. Why it was saying something else yesterday, I don't have a clue. None at all. And one of the reasons I was so baffled is because I don't have a lot of music or movies at all. I have mostly text files more than anything else. Recipeis and knitting patterns, etc.

The other thing that baffled me was that there was no sluggishness in the way my computer responded most of the time. Only if I left it idle for several hours, then it didn't want to respond until I rebooted. Now, I am shutting it down in the afternoon, and don't turn it on till the following morning, and it's not giving me any problems at the moment. But my daughter is looking into finding me another computer, because this one is going on 9 years old, and the monitor is even older than that by a good 2-3 years. I was rather hoping to put it off another year, but maybe it would be safer to get it done now. LOL

I have most of my important files in "the cloud" anyway, like on Google Drive and Microsoft's Live Drive or One Drive, whatever.

Hope you are having an enjoyable day,
Sandie

 

Win 7 does a defrag automatically. Not like in the old days of Windows. Could be that it defragged itself and freed up some space. What you posted in the last post almost seems to much to be gained. You can try the Disk Cleanup then do the defrag afterwards and see what it shows. That would be the most accurate way of telling. Let it do it's thing and don't do anything else.

 

Hi Mr. Bill,

Actually that is exactly what I did before it showed I had all that much space left. I went even further. First I ran the disc cleanup, then I defragged, and I also removed some programming that I have never used, or have not used in a long time. Not a lot of programs, but several. I also removed some files that I have already transferred to my external drive and no longer need to keep them on this hard drive as well. And last, but not least, I also compressed my hard drive.

Oddly enough, when trying to compress my hard drive, I received a message from Windows that it could not be completed for some reason or other, so I said OK, and shut down the PC after that. But when I rebooted the next morning, and found all that much space now available, and the box was still checked to compress all files, I can only assume that it did work, along with the other measures I had taken to clean up the hard drive and remove unnecessary programs and files. There are probably several other programs and such that I could safely remove, but some of them came with the computer and I'm not sure exactly what they are, so I don't dare to touch them.

My daughter is also going to come and take the computer down and give it a thorough cleaning on the inside. It is possible that after that alone, things will work much smoother, although right now I am no longer having a problem with anything. It is still over-due for a thorough cleaning. And if I can hang on to this one till the end of the year, I will. It would be helpful if I could put off purchasing another one to a time when prices are much better than they are now.

Have a great day,
Sandie

 

After removing programs an some files, then disk cleanup and defrag should of come next. Those should always be done last.

 

Thank you Mr. Bill,

You are right, I should have done that again, after I deleted the files and removed the programming, and never gave it a thought. But since I have a few more files I will be deleting soon, I will make a point of doing the disk cleanup and defrag again. So far everything has been working just fine though.

Have a great day,
Sandie