On boot I get highlight the operating system & press enter. I have only 1 operating system. This screen sometimes appears sometimes dont. Previously it use to never appear. Recently it has started. I dont know if accidently any windows setting got changed. Checked with various malware scanners, no malware found.
Any info/solution?
Thanxx
Naren
That sounds like a dual boot thing… but, it should always appear not only sometimes. That doesn’t sound right.
Go and get EasyBCD (it’s free for personal use). Install & run EasyBCD to see what you have set-up. Post the Detailed view here, if you need help with the output.
But this is not a dual boot system. I have only XP SP3.
I remember 1 thing.
In Avast forum a user was getting FP on UPHC Clean or something, a microsoft thing. I installed it to check & informed him that the latest version is not detected. I installed it from Micorsoft site. Later I uninstalled it.
From that day I am getting this prob.
And whenever I get this screen, Event Viewer shows
Windows saved user MAHESH-PC\Mahesh registry while an application or service was still using the registry during log off. The memory used by the user’s registry has not been freed. The registry will be unloaded when it is no longer in use.
This is often caused by services running as a user account, try configuring the services to run in either the LocalService or NetworkService account.
When I dont get the screen, Event Viewer doesn’t shows this.
Thanxx
Naren
Boot? Well, you said that you periodically get a boot selection message & that you need to select XP. Use EasyBCD to check this… it doesn’t make your PC dual boot or anything (unless you make it so). However, in your last post you did say “screen”… did you mean screen? Everything should look DOS-like at boot (ie. before Windows has loaded). It didn’t mention anything about starting in Safe Mode or Normally did it?
UPHC? This sounds like the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service. But, this would be a shutdown issue, not start-up one AFAIK. Besides it’s a Windows component & doesn’t have much to do with booting since Windows isn’t loaded at that time. But, the message you’re seeing is a typical issue with this component and can be caused be quite a few different things. If you suspect Avast, then searching their forums would probably be a good start.
Yes the dos like screen. No mention of anything, just Windows XP Home Edition.
I sometimes get this screen & sometimes dont. Previously I use to never get this screen. It started recently.
Thanxx
Naren
Use EasyBCD to check this out… or you could look at the boot.ini file directly if you wanted. But, if you do that, handle with extreme caution and don’t make any changes… you can easily render a system unbootable with this file. Which is why I keep recommending EasyBCD. 
How can I look directly into boot.ini?
Thanxx
Naren
What should I look for in boot.ini for my prob?
Thanxx
Naren
boot.ini shows this
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=“Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition” /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
Thanxx
Naren
Looks like a standard boot.ini file to me. Assuming that your OS is "“Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition”, with DEP (Data Execution Protection) Opt-In (only programs that ask for DEP have it) enabled, and this is exactly what is displayed when you see this OS selection menu, then it looks fine.
When you see this OS selection menu… does it timeout if you don’t answer (how long?) and is there anything else on the screen?
PS Sorry for the delay.
Comparing Naren’s boot ini everything is identical except, I don’t have the last line.
UncleDoug
Hi Naren,
Are you certain that you haven’t got a keyboard key sticking sometimes?
Try a different keyboard if possible.
Its a laptop.
Thanxx
Naren
It doesn’t timeout. There are no secs runnning. Nothing else on the screen.
At the bottom is, For troubleshoot & …
Thanxx
Naren
I don’t think the bit at the bottom should be there… this sounds more like the Windows recover console than a boot loader. What exactly does it say?
However, given a new topic of yours (Linux OS)… I’m not sure this is worth investigating much further. Any Linux system, installed along side XP, will require some sort of boot loader to be installed (probably Grub) and this will certainly overwrite/destroy anything that currently exists.
I haven’t installed Linux yet. It will take time if I decide to install it coz its 700MB size will take much time to download given the net speed here.
For the bottom part I am restarting now & will post what exactly it says.
Thanxx
Naren
The bottom part mentions
For troubleshooting & advanced startup options for Windows, Press F8.
Thanxx
Naren
Yep, that does look like Window’s recovery screen… and there’s nothing else on screen other than what you’ve mentioned? No options for Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration, etc…?
Check the Windows Event Log - System. On start-up does Windows record that the previous shutdown didn’t complete properly or something like that?
Yaa there is nothing on the screen apart from what I have mentioned.
Event Viewer - System - There is no error entry.
Thanxx
Naren