Windows 8 - Blank Start screen after BSOD

[Abstinence Pistols]

I was playing Warframe earlier, and all of a sudden the game locked up on me. I restarted my computer and was greeted with the infamous Blue Screen of Death. It repaired the disk, and launched back up. However, there are a couple things wrong.

When I go to enter my password, the background is blue instead of black, which is what I had it set to before. The Start screen, which normally has tiles on it, is now blue with an odd fractal pattern on the bottom, shown here: http://puu.sh/1WjKm (sorry for the crappy quality). If I try to access anything through the charms bar, it either returns me to this screen or gives me a blank blue screen. And finally, though I can access my desktop by pressing Windows + D, everything from the bottom bar is gone.

Does anyone know what to do? I have tried the following:
Booted in Safe Mode
Used the sfc /scannow command
Uninstalled a specific update I was told might be causing the problem (KB2756872)

Nothing has worked so far. Does anyone know what I can do to fix this? I don't think it's a virus, since the computer is fairly new and all I've installed is Chrome, Warframe, and a couple Steam games.

 

[dragonskull]

Hav you tried system restore by any chance? If it isn't windows, it may be hardware but since the computer gets past POST fine I think that's not the problem.

 

[Abstinence Pistols]

Hav you tried system restore by any chance? If it isn't windows, it may be hardware but since the computer gets past POST fine I think that's not the problem.

I'd like to save that for last, since my Windows 8 disk has limited installations on it IIRC.

Someone told me it might be that my RAM is incompatible, since I have 8 GB of DDR3 RAM installed, but I was able to play Natural Selection 2 and New Vegas just fine before that, so I don't think that's it either.

 

[Jb]

It might just be. There have been a multitude of complains of this happening when people try to run modern games while running Windows 8.

From what I've read it might be a driver. Something to do with the November update. I don't know much else.

 

[Abstinence Pistols]

It might just be. There have been a multitude of complains of this happening when people try to run modern games while running Windows 8.

From what I've read it might be a driver. Something to do with the November update. I don't know much else.

Where did you hear that? I can try and uninstall the update that caused it.

 

[Jb]

Here's the thread: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=108441.15

There are a few mentions throughout. I don't personally have 8 so I don't know how to go about fixing it though.

 

[dragonskull]

Well just so you know, system recovery only affects Windows files so no programs are affected by it. It's as far as I know the best solution for Windows problems after an update

 

[Abstinence Pistols]

Well just so you know, system recovery only affects Windows files so no programs are affected by it. It's as far as I know the best solution for Windows problems after an update

I would definitely do that, but the problem is, I can't access the settings menu to do it. Like I said, everything in the charms bar is unusable - if I try and access the search function or the settings menu I just get a blank blue screen and I have to press Windows + D to go back to my desktop.

Is it possible to do that through the control panel or some other way? Also, if I use my Windows 8 disk to do this will it take away one of the installations?

 

[dragonskull]

Are you able to get to the task manager with CTRL + ALT + DELETE? If so select FILE and after that NEW TASK and then type control.exe
Normally that will open the control panel through the task manager.
Similarly instead of typing control.exe, typing rstrui.exe will directly launch system restore.

The restore function resets all settings which were done to the windows installation which you are running the system restore on so it won't affect any other installations on other partitions of your hard disk. Depending on how long your computer has been set to remember system restore points you can then set it back to the state it was on the date of your choice if possible take a week or more back then when your problem occurred and hopefully that will be the charm.

 

[Abstinence Pistols]

Well, that did fix it, but I was playing a separate game today and my computer crashed again. It didn't give me a BSOD this time, thankfully, but it's still kind of a pain to have it crash every time I play a game.

Is there any way I can stop it crashing this frequently?

 

[Jb]

Windows 8 isn't optimize to fully play games correctly yet, there's not much you can do outside of quick fixes yet. Keep in mind it was design for tablets.

 

[bronislav84]

Actually Jb it's Windows 8 RT that was designed for tablets. There is a difference, main one being that RT can't install non MS Marketplace programs. The regular 8 is designed for PCs, just poorly.

My only suggestion is to buy 7, skip 8 entirely, and hope 9 "fixes" the issues of 8 like 7 did with Vista. This might be out of your budget, but it is the best solution. I personally went to the trouble of ordering a Windows 7 Ultimate computer THE DAY before 8 came out. I wanted to make sure I wouldn't be forced to use 8 because I heard bad things about it, and mom took a while deciding to get it so we cut it close like that. All the computers seem to come with 8 now, which might mean it could be hard to get a hold of a genuine 7 anymore. Seriously are companies that dumb that they just load the latest without realizing how bad it is?

I see going from 7 to 8 as a downgrade. MS really screwed up on 8 IMHO. I thought they'd learned from Vista. Really I did.

Seriously it seems like every other Windows generation is horrible.