_Something_ broke yesterday afternoon. Popped out for about an hour, came back,
found the computer had gone into a sort of coma-like state - still on, still
active, couldn't be woken, wasn't responding to even the power switch. So,
force power down and reboot.
Since then -
* I actually get a desktop on boot maximum 50% of the time. The rest of the time I get a blank desktop that won't even respond to Ctrl-Alt-Del. Safe mode hasn't worked once.
* Every time, it freezes on shut down.
* Windows update can see the updates and start downloading, but says it's never getting anything (which appears to be true).
* Windows Defender won't update or run
* The systray says the network isn't connected and the control panel network
manager won't start up. It is, however, demonstrably connected to the Internet
through that network.
* The task manager appears to start up and put the icon in the systray, but
that's the end of it. It shows no activity and won't show its interface.
* System restore won't let me in, just sits there scanning.
What was changed before this? Tried to set up bluetooth to connect to my phone,
which failed and so has been removed. Nothing else at all in weeks. With
hundreds of photos to edit from this week and likely many, many more from this
weeked I could really have done without this.
Hate to suggest it's a virus - I'm running updated antivirus and a firewall -
but this does look very like something trying to protect itself from removal.
Heading out in a mo, but I foresee hours of playing with recovery discs that I
hope I can find this evening.
