Remote desktop stuck on Welcome screen

If your Windows 7 computer stuck on Welcome screen out of some reasons, you can refer to this article and find effective solutions.

By @Delia
Last Updated November 25, 2021

"I boot my computer, and get to the Windows Welcome screen after I enter my password, the spinning loading thing rotates forever. This stuck screen happens every once in a while. I have to manually shut down and start back up multiple times before I can successfully login again. Can anyone tell me what wrong it is and how to fix Windows 7 stuck on Welcome screen?"

How to fix Windows 7 stuck on Welcome screen

There are some complaints about Windows 7 stuck on Welcome screen. In fact, besides Windows 7, this issue also happens in other operating systems. This is an annoying problem. If you just wait to log in, it could be several hours or even several days.

You may encounter this issue based on different situations: for example, you may get Windows 7 stuck on Welcome screen when connected to network, after login, or after update. I will walk you through 5 ways to fix this issue.

▪ Solution 1. Disconnect from the internet ▪ Solution 2. Restart Windows Update service ▪ Solution 3. Run system checks ▪ Solution 4. Perform Startup Repair ▪ Solution 5. Clean boot troubleshooting

Solution 1. Disconnect from the internet

According to some users, they encountered Windows 7 stuck on Welcome screen when connected to network. If your computer tries to connect to the wireless network and gets stuck, you can disconnect the internet before proceeding to log in.

Solution 2. Restart Windows Update service

If you encounter Windows 7 stuck on Welcome screen after update, you can try to restart Windows Update service. Follow the steps below:

Step 1. Press Win + R to bring out Run dialogue. Type cmd in the Run dialogue and press Enter.

Step 2. In the Command Prompt window, type the following commands and press Enter after each to stop Windows Update service and then restart it:

• net stop wuauserv 

• cd %systemroot% 

• ren SoftwareDistribution SD.old 

• net start wuauserv

Step 3. Type exit and press Enter to close Command Prompt. Reboot your PC/laptop and check if the stuck on Welcome screen has gone.

Tips: If you still get stuck on Welcome screen Windows 7, rename a few files and restart your computer again.

Solution 3. Run system checks

In some cases, corrupt system files on your computer will cause this problem – stuck on Welcome screen Windows 10/8/7. Therefore, to fix Windows 7 stuck on Welcome screen, you can follow the instructions below to check and repair corrupted files.

Step 1. Open Command Prompt as you do in Solution 2.

Step 2. Type the following commands in Command Prompt and press Enter after each of them:

• sfc /scannow

• chkdsk c: /f /r

• bootrec /fixmbr

• bootrec /fixboot

• bootrec /scans

• bootrec /rebuildbcd

Step 3. Type exit and press Enter to close Command Prompt and restart your computer.

Solution 4. Perform Startup Repair

The Startup Repair tool can repair Windows by replacing important operating system files that might be damaged or missing. Boot to System Recovery Options and select Startup Repair. Then follow the instructions on the screen to complete the repair.

Solution 5: Clean boot troubleshooting

This issue can also be caused by one of the non-Microsoft applications or a driver. If you are able to boot successfully in Safe Mode, you can perform a clean boot to find the root cause.

Step 1. Click Start, type msconfig in the Start search box, and then press Enter. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, and click “Continue”.

Step 2. On the General tab, click Selective Startup.

Step 3. Under Selective Startup, click to clear the Load Startup items check box.

Step 4. Click the Services tab, click to select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box, and then click Disable All. Then click OK.

Step 5. Click Restart when prompted. After the computer starts, check whether the problem is resolved.

Tips: If your Windows 7 computer stuck even in Safe Mode, you have to turn to an installation media to boot and troubleshoot your computer.

Extra tips for Windows 7 stuck on Welcome screen fix

After fixing the issue Windows 7 stuck on Welcome screen, you need to take a serious consideration on how to prevent this issue or similar issues happening again. Actually, the best and easiest way is to make an image backup. A backup is almost zero cost, and it can help you to solve all kinds of system issues by restoring to the previous good state from the backup.

To have a better backup experience, it is recommended to use AOMEI Backupper Standard. It is totally free!

• With its clean and user-friendly interface, you can backup system, disks, partitions, or individual files easily.
• To keep your backup up to date, you can have a scheduled backup on a regular basis.
• Thanks to incremental backup, the scheduled backup will only backup the changed data and it will not occupy much space.

It runs well on Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP. Click the button below to download this freeware:

To backup system via AOMEI Backupper, you just need to click Backup and select System Backup. Then choose a destination path to save the backup, and finally click Start Backup.

Tips: The advanced version of AOMEI Backupper provides more powerful features. For example, you can restore system to a dissimilar hardware, backup dynamic disk volume, and automatically delete old backups, etc.

Verdict

Now you know how to fix Windows 7 stuck on Welcome screen. To recover your computer easily from possible system issues, you may backup system with AOMEI Backupper. Besides system backup, AOMEI Backupper is able to backup disks, partitions, or specific files.

If you want to protect unlimited computers within your company, you can pick AOMEI Backupper Technician. With the inbuilt AOMEI Image Deploy tool, you are also allowed to deploy/restore system image file on server-side computer to multiple client-side computers over network.

One problem that virtual desktop administrators often encounter is that the Microsoft remote desktop protocol is stuck at configuring a remote Windows session.

This problem can occur in Windows versions dating back to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, but it can also occur in newer Windows versions, including Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019. The problem can occur regardless of whether Microsoft Terminal Server is in use.

The main symptom of the problem is that it's impossible to establish a remote desktop connection to a Windows server, terminal server or virtual desktop session.

Unfortunately, there are a variety of problems that can cause errors which will result in Microsoft remote desktops' connection being stuck configuring remote sessions. As such, there is no universal quick fix for the problem. As a virtual desktop admin, you typically have to use trial and error to resolve the issue, so you should use some of the following methods to determine what the cause of their issue is.

1. Address memory shortages

One potential cause of errors when Microsoft remote desktop protocol [RDP] is stuck configuring remote sessions is that the target server or virtual desktop is running low on memory. The exact steps required to fix this problem vary widely depending on the version of Windows that the target system is running.

The following steps assume that your system is running Windows 10, but they will vary slightly for other Windows versions.

1. Log on to the remote system. You may have to log on locally or reboot the host to be able to log in.
2. Press Ctrl + Alt+ Delete to open the Task Manager
3. Select the Performance tab
4. Click on the Memory option
5. Check to see how much memory is available. Ideally, at least 20% of the machine's memory should be available for use [Figure 1]

A Windows system that has plenty of memory available

If you find that the remote system has insufficient memory, you will need to allocate additional memory to it. Sometimes the best option will be to enable virtual memory. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings
2. Click on About
3. Click Advanced System Settings
4. Click the Settings button found in the Performance section [Figure 2]

The Settings button found in the Performance section The automatically manage paging file size for all drives section with the box checked

2. Check the self-assigned remote desktop certificate

Some remote desktop connection problems stem from an invalid or corrupt certificate. This certificate is a local resource, and it resides on the PC that you use to establish the remote desktop connection to the remote machine. To correct this problem, you should follow these steps:

1. Open File Explorer and navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA
2. Rename the MachineKeys folder to MachineKeys-Backup. Renaming the folder rather than deleting it gives you a way to retrieve your keys later on if it becomes necessary to do so [Figure 4]

The MachineKeys folder that you should rename to MachineKeys-Backup

1. Launch the Service Control Manager by entering the Services.msc command at the Run prompt
2. Restart the Remote Desktop Configuration service

The Microsoft Remote Desktop Configuration service, with the option to stop or restart

1. Open File Explorer and navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA

1. Verify that a new certificate was created
2. Verify that the TSUserEnabled Registry Key is set

If you are working in a Terminal Server environment, then the RDP connectivity problems can also occur if the TSUserEnabled Registry Key is set to 0 instead of 1 on the client. Keep in mind that editing the Windows Registry is dangerous, so it's important to take the appropriate precautions in case anything goes wrong. You can check this Registry key by following these steps:

1. Open the Registry Editor
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\
3. Make sure that the value of TSUserEnabled is set to 1 [Figure 6]

The Windows Registry Editor's Terminal Server values with the TSUserEnabled value set to 0 -- it should be 1

3. Recreate the user profile

As a last resort, you can try recreating the user profile on the machine that is unable to establish a Microsoft RDP connection. This technique can cause data loss, so it is extremely important to create a backup before attempting this technique.

To recreate the user profile, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Registry Editor
2. Navigate to the following location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList [Figure 7]

This Registry Editor's entries correspond to user profiles

1. Right-click on the user profile that you want to recreate -- the ProfileImagePath key will tell you who the profile belongs to
2. Select the Delete command from the shortcut menu to delete the profile
3. Reboot the machine and log in as the user whose profile was deleted