Task Host Is Stopping Background Tasks

There is a message you may get when you are restarting or shutting down Windows that is preventing the computer from automatically restarting. It might also prevent the computer from booting too. It will say:

Task Host Window
Task Host is stopping background tasks. (\Microsoft\Windows\Plug and Play\Device Install Reboot Required )

This is the result of some hardware that is either defective or not fully compatible with Windows. You need to isolate which one is the problem. Try the USB devices one at a time first. And if that doesn’t work, try the internal hardware. Once you find isolate the defective or incompatible device, leave it disconnected. If it is a USB device, you may still be able to use it, but you can only connect it when you need too and disconnect when you are done. If you are using Windows 10, the device may be compatible with an earlier version of it.

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Windows Freezes For Half-Second

Here is a problem that happened to a customer. Windows would freeze for a half-second then unfreeze for a few seconds, and repeat forever. It would not freeze in safe mode. Disabling or uninstalling the video card driver fixed the problem, but that caused other problems. This was a HP all-in-one. The fix was to update the BIOS (actually the UEFI). After a BIOS update, the problem was fixed. I would also disconnect the internet and do a clean install of the video card driver. You have to disconnect the internet because Microsoft thinks they know better than you and will try to reinstall the video card driver.

Some other websites mentioned that you need to update the video card driver to fix this problem. I actually did that first. But it didn’t fix the problem. On a hunch, I tried updating the BIOS. Since this computer came with Windows 8.1, on HP’s website I had to select Windows 8.1 as the OS before the BIOS updates appeared. (P.S. I do realize it really is an UEFI, but the HP website still calls it the BIOS.)

0xc0000001 Blue Screen in Windows

The 0xc0000001 blue screen in Windows is related to the hard drive controller. If you ever get this blue screen, the first thing to check is if the drive standard was changed in the BIOS or UEFI. If it was AHCI but you changed it to ATA (or IDE), change it back and see if the blue screen goes away. This blue screen can also appear after you clone a hard drive. Some computers do not support SSD’s even if it using the SATA cable. And if you clone a hard drive to one using the M.2 interface, this problem can appear.

By the way, if you accidentally bricked your CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive with a firmware upgrade, you will need to use ATA/IDE mode to unbrick it.

Fortunately, in Windows 10 there is an easy way to change your hard drive controller type. There isn’t much to like about Windows 10, but this is one thing it does make easier. Before you make the change in your BIOS, use the MSCONFIG program to boot into safe mode the next time. Change the setting in the BIOS, boot once in safe mode and use MSCONFIG to undo the safe mode setting, and then you should be able to boot as normal. However, if you cannot get into Windows or the BIOS, hopefully you can get into the Windows recovery environment. (I still say that the absolute dumbest thing Microsoft ever did was disable the pre-boot F8 button.) In the recovery environment, look for the startup settings in the menu options. When the computer boots, choose safe mode in the blue screen of menu options.

If 0xc0000001 persists, then you will have to try the SFC command, system restore, registry backups, and the other usual generic repairs.

STOP 0xc0000225 After Cloned Drive

Here are the symptoms: You clone a hard drive in any number of ways, but the cloned drive will not boot. This problem may manifest itself if you are cloning a larger drive to a smaller one. This, of course, requires you to shrink the partition with your files from the original boot drive. If the original boot drive is connected to the computer with a USB adapter, it will boot just fine. Otherwise you will get a blue screen with the stop error code 0xc0000225. If this is Windows 10, you will get the message “Your PC/Device needs to be repaired”.

New Hard Drive With KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR Blue Screen

I had an older but still good computer with two internal hard drives: an old Western Digital Green hard drive and a newer WD Black hard drive. The Green drive had the page file and important backup files. This being Windows 7, it had a full system backup on the WD Green and a Quickbooks backup. The computer kept giving the blue screen error 0x0000007a KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR, which according to Microsoft is caused by bad hardware or bad RAM. So my first thought was the WD Green drive was bad because, again from Microsoft, the blue screen “indicates that the requested page of kernel data from the paging file could not be read into memory.” Since the page file was on the old WD Green drive and since Windows had trouble reading the page file, it must be that drive or bad RAM.

Turns out, there were 3 causes of this blue screen. The WD Green drive was, in fact, bad. I put it in my computer and tested it to be sure, and it was bad. So I bought a SSD, shrank and cloned the WD Black drive to it, and repurposed the WD Black drive into what the WD Green drive was being used for. Except I put the page file on the SSD. After doing this, the same blue screen still appeared. So the second guess was bad memory. Which also, in fact, was defective as a memory test discovered. So I fixed that problem as well.

But the same blue screen kept appearing. I finally figured out the hard drive cable was bad. I replaced that cable and the machine hasn’t had a blue screen since. At the end of the day I concluded that while all the bad memory and bad hard drive did not help, it was not the root cause of the blue screen.

How to Make a Cloned Drive Bootable if the Original Was Bad

These are the instructions to make a cloned drive bootable again if the original had bad sectors. These instructions are only applicable for any Windows that uses the BCD, which is Vista and beyond, and has a MBR. You will need a Windows 7 or later DVD or equivalent USB stick; a Windows Vista disc will be harder. This assumes that the OS files were cloned successfully.

• Run chkdsk on all the partitions.
• Identify which partition has the BCD files. If there is a recovery partition, chances are good the BCD is stored on that drive.
• Use the following commands in the diskpart program:
  • LIST DISK (use this command to identify the cloned hard drive number)
  • SELECT DISK # (where # is the cloned hard drive number)
  • LIST PARTITION (use this command to identify the partition with the BCD files)
  • SELECT PARTITION # (where # is the partition with the BCD files)
  • ACTIVE
  • EXIT
• Now run the following commands: (Of course, some are redundant!)
  • bootsect /nt60 sys /force
  • bootrec /fixboot
  • bootrec /fixmbr
  • bcdboot d:\windows /s c: (where d:\ is the drive letter with all your Windows files and c: is the system partition from above)
    • NOTE: Usually but not always the system partition is given the driver letter c:. If it was not given any drive letter, you will have to use the diskpart commands to assign it a drive letter. But it some cases it may not be c:, in some cases it may be on the same drive as your Windows files.
• Reboot.
• If problems still persist, run startup repair.

Security Updates That Block Windows Server 2012 R2 Client Restore

The client restore on Windows Server Essentials is excellent. But several security updates interfere with it. Below is a list of the security updates on Windows 7 that cause problems with the restore. I am using Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials. This may or may not apply to Windows Server 2008 Essentials, Windows Server 2008 R2 Essentials, Windows Home Server 2011, or Windows Server 2012 Essentials. Below is also an up-to-date automated script to remove them.

Note: the backup works fine with the updates and so does the bare metal restore; this issue only occurs when you need to restore individual files. Also note: I do not know which updates in Windows 8, 8.1, or 10 interfere since I will never get any of those OS’s. (Windows 7 will be my last Windows unless Microsoft changes course and respects my privacy and stops trying to merge a tablet with a desktop.)

Note: This list is always slow to update because I wait a few weeks to a month just to make sure there is not a bad security update. (Windows 10 does not give you that luxury.) Some optional updates may not yet be on this list, they may appear several months later.

This list was last updated 10/4/2016. 29 bad updates are listed. Because Microsoft is now unwisely bundling all security updates into one big package from now on, this list will no longer be updated. The best thing you can now do is, on your server, create a virtual machine with a shell Windows 7/8/8.1, disable all updates are that virtual Windows, and use that only a individual file restore machine.

How To Block Windows Tracking Using an Asus Router

I currently own the Asus RT-AC66U router and I love it. I’ve had it for over a year and it has been steady as a rock. But with this “cloud first, mobile first” (and customer last) philosophy of Microsoft, I was looking for a way to make my router block all that tracking that is in Windows 10 and trying to be in Windows 7 and 8. Block it at the router level and Microsoft can’t do a thing about it. According to Asus, the RT-AC66U router supports DD-WRT. This is a requirement. If your Asus router does not support DD-WRT, then this how-to will not help. Fortunately you don’t need to install DD-WRT. DD-WRT can a pain to install on a router. You do need to install the Merlin firmware, which you can download here.

This is an advanced how-to meant for more technical people.

6 Reasons Why Windows 7 Is Superior to Windows 10

Microsoft is making a lot of hullabaloo about Windows 10 even going so far as to offer Win10 at no cost to anybody using Windows 7 or Windows 8. Of course, just because something does not cost more money does not mean it is free. If you are using Windows 7, you should not upgrade. Here are 6 reasons why:

Windows Boots to Black Screen With Mouse Cursor Only

I encountered a Windows 7 computer that would only boot to a black screen. The only thing I saw was a mouse arrow. At first I suspected the hard drive was corrupt, so I cloned the hard drive. But the problem still existed. With this computer I still had reason to believe the hard drive was bad. Next I scanned for a virus in Windows directory and the only that was discovered was one of those junk free programs that deliver pop-up ads.

It was at this point that I decided to try an easy solution. Since this was Windows 7 there would a good copy of the registry files at %windir%\system32\config\RegBack\. So after making a backup of the current registry files, I copied the good registry over the current ones. With this computer, some of the current registry files were twice as big as the good copies, which is why I think something was wrong with the old hard drive. After I did this, the computer booted fine.

Some other suggestions included running System Restore. I was lazy in this instance and didn’t try that. But I did increase the System Restore capacity once I got back into Windows. If you are still using Windows XP, you can always find the registry files under the \System Volume Information\ folder. Some other suggestions are that certain key folders have been corrupted or have corrupt permissions. Check the Windows folder, the Program Files folders, and the Recycle Bin folder.