Can't restart. Re-start circle(?) just goes round and round endlessly

bofhlusr said:

So I decided to do additional troubleshooting. Safebooting worked. Re-start was normal. I was able to re-start with no problems. Next, I did a diagnostic startup (using msconfig, see below) and that worked too. So I guess it's a driver issue of some sort?? But now the question is which driver?? (see my start-up items below. I should note that these start-ups are not new and worked for at least a year without changes or problems).

I would say it's a driver issue.
Did you install a program recently?

Megahertz said:

I would say it's a driver issue.
Did you install a program recently?

It was a forced update of a Microsoft program which affected a lot of people who had not experience any problems previously and are now experiencing problems for the first time ever.

New MSFS error in graphics - Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) - The AVSIM Community

Thank you for your reply.

Autoruns: try Autoruns64.exe. Both that and Autoruns.exe run on mine. One of the others won't run; and the sc versions are the command line version (see guides, various for detail)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sy...loads/autoruns

How to use Microsoft Autoruns - YouTube

How to use Microsoft Autoruns for Windows 10

@pepanee. Your suggestion worked. I left Windows re-start and also shut-down running. Eventually, after a couple of hours it re-started itself. In another test, it also shutdown itself. But it took a long time. I'm not sure what the conclusion is though. I still don't know how to resolve that.

Unhide all files / system files etc again, if you reverted to hiding the files. (I'm assuming you still have hidden files showing).
Look in all your root Drives letters
Example:
C:\
D:\
etc...
and see if a pagefile.sys and/or a hiberfil.sys, in one drive, or even in multiple drives, got created. I'm assuming if they did get created, then they're gonna be pretty big in size. Gigabytes.
Do you see those files at all?

Autoruns for Windows
There are 6 executable s in the program and there are no instructions on which executable to run.

Which one should you run?
It depends on your processor
autoruns64a.exe is for ARM
On an Intel / AMD processor, use autoruns.exe (32-bit version) or autoruns64.exe (64-bit version).

Autorunsc is the command-line version of Autoruns.

M$ autoruns

Your quote: "The best software is the one you know how to use it."

Maybe it should be "The best software is the one you need and has good docs."? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

- - - Updated - - -

pepanee said:

Unhide all files / system files etc again, if you reverted to hiding the files. (I'm assuming you still have hidden files showing).
Look in all your root Drives letters
Example:
C:\
D:\
etc...
and see if a pagefile.sys and/or a hiberfil.sys, in one drive, or even in multiple drives, got created. I'm assuming if they did get created, then they're gonna be pretty big in size. Gigabytes.
Do you see those files at all?

No. Nothing. I disabled paging and hibernation before the re-start and later on the shutdown.

P.S.: I never hide system files.

bofhlusr said:

No. Nothing. I disabled paging and hibernation before the re-start and later on the shutdown.
P.S.: I never hide system files.

Hmm I see. I wanted to see if Windows was confused about the setting and accidentally decided to create the files...
...so my last suggestion regarding what I would try, is an experimental idea only. There's a high chance that it won't resolve this issue, but it has a very low chance of working.

This is what I think your computer is doing: Once you Restart your computer, Windows gets confused and starts to create a pagefile.sys file in the C:\ drive, and possibly in all your other drives as well. Once it creates this (these) file(s), it's (they're) gonna be gigabytes big, and your computer, while Restarting, is writing onto those files, which takes some time (The hours until the restart was a little long on the other hand...).
And once your computer restarts, it erases the files, so you don't see them.
In short: They get created and erased without you knowing about them, while the computer is Restarting.

SO the experimental idea is something, that honestly, I would try, but it's "experimental".
The whole idea is that we create "fake" pagefile.sys files that we restrict Windows from ever touching/modifying/erasing/anything.

ASSUMING Windows is trying to create a useless pagefile, then it would want to try to modify the "restricted one" we create, and Windows notices it cannot touch that file, and would go to the next step of Restarting to the BIOS screen immediately.

I hope you're following along with what I'm saying...
...I'll give it a few thoughts, and I'll give you the directions on how you could make the "restricted" files that Windows isn't allowed to look at.
I would assume a conflict could happen, but I just tried it on my end. It worked; Windows didn't bother to try to modify the restricted pagefile.sys file.

pepanee said:

Hmm I see. I wanted to see if Windows was confused about the setting and accidentally decided to create the files...
...

ASSUMING Windows is trying to create a useless pagefile, then it would want to try to modify the "restricted one" we create, and Windows notices it cannot touch that file, and would go to the next step of Restarting to the BIOS screen immediately.

I hope you're following along with what I'm saying...
....

I understand. But why would Windows create a pagefile since the functionality and hibernation are both disabled and unavailable?

Also, a reminder.... in a previous post I noted that both 'restart' and 'shutdown' worked normally in Windows' safe mode.

bofhlusr said:

But why would Windows create a pagefile since the functionality and hibernation are both disabled and unavailable?

You're completely right. Why would Windows be trying to create it?
...yet according to your computer's log... it seems like it is trying to play around with the idea of the page file, which I dunno why. Maybe some sort of little setting that got misconfigured in the Registry somewhere...: