After entering my Windows 7 user account password, I am stuck with a blue swirl and the Welcome screen on my laptop. I waited for a while, and when it seems that nothing is happening to my computer, I forcibly removed the battery from my laptop and rebooted. Then, it was back to normal.

Just this morning, I encountered the same problem again! The MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) in me prompted a visit to the Microsoft Support website and I stumble upon Article 2578159 (The logon process stops responding in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7). It matches the symptoms my laptop encounters:

When you log on to a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7, the logon process stops responding and a blue swirl is shown on the Welcome screen indefinitely. After some time, the computer stops responding to any network-related commands. You must forcibly restart the computer to recover from this issue.

With its cause described as:

This issue occurs because of a race condition between the Windows Event Log service and the Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) tracing functions. When the race condition occurs, it causes a deadlock situation. This deadlock situation then causes the Winlogon.exe process to become unresponsive.

Good thing, a Hotfix file was able for download and my problem is now resolved!

Processor: VIA C7-M 1200MHz 32-bit
RAM: 2.00GB
Display: 8.9-inch diagonal WXGA (1280 x 768) LCD with CCFL backlight
Keyboard: 92% of a full-sized keyboard
Connectivity: WLAN 802.11a/b/g/n, Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mbits/s,

As of this writing, here’s my ranking worldwide (70th) and country-wise (1st):

As promised, here’s the download link for the slide deck of my lecture:

What’s included in the Service Pack 1 of Windows 7?

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is an important update that includes previously released security, performance, and stability updates for Windows 7. SP1 also includes new improvements to features and services in Windows 7, such as improved reliability when connecting to HDMI audio devices, printing using the XPS Viewer, and restoring previous folders in Windows Explorer after restarting.

Download the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) now via the Microsoft.com Downloads section or simply launch Windows Update from your PC. Alongside the SP1 launch, Microsoft is also releasing the Release Candidate (RC) for Internet Explorer 9. Based on my initial impression of IE9 — well, it’s just faster than the previous version (IE9 Beta).

With the Microsoft Office Web App (integrated into Windows Live SkyDrive — your free 25GB online web storage), you can create/edit Microsoft Office Word documents, Excel workbooks, PowerPoint slideshows, and even OneNote free-form notes without having to install the actual Microsoft Office suite. All you need is a decent internet connection and Internet Explorer (a tleast).

ReadyBoost is a component of Microsoft Windows, first introduced with Windows Vista in 2006 and also included with Windows 7. It works by using flash memory, USB 2.0 drive, SD card, CompactFlash or any kind of portable flash mass storage system as a drive for disk cache.

ReadyBoost is also used to facilitate SuperFetch, an updated version of Windows XP’s prefetcher which performs analysis of boot-time disk usage patterns and creates a cache which is used in subsequent system boots.

So, I reformatted the PQI SD card and activated ReadyBoost:

Then, I did a simply test to check if ReadyBoost really works or not. With ReadyBoost activated, I fired up Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended and it just took me 40.1 seconds to see it’s GUI.

Now, I ejected the PQI SD card (ReadyBoost), made a reboot, then fired Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended again, and it took me some 77.0 seconds just to see the GUI. That’s around 30 seconds difference, and indeed it’s a big thing. Indeed, ReadyBoost works!

If you’re wondering the specs of my Windows 7 laptop, it’s an eMachines by Acer D725 running Intel Pentium Dual-core T4200 with 2GB of RAM. Now, I am thinking of getting a 2GB SD Card to be dedicated for ReadyBoost on my lappy.

I hate Windows Vista, actually when I got my HP Mini 2133, a month later I changed my OS to Windows XP dual-booted with Windows 7 Beta (which was later on upgraded to RC). It made my HP Mini 2133 more useful (and faster).

With Windows 7, I got all the guts to be brave and bold enough that I installed the Release Candidate on my newly acquired eMachines laptop.

As promised, hereunder is a copy of the slide deck I used for the talk. For anything related to the seminar, please feel free to email me via bob@bobreyes.com