One of the most common phones calls we get is from people calling in and saying things are not opening on their computer. Or, either they do open and it is very slow to do so.

This can be a very broad subject that involves many different parts of your computer.

Fortunately when things are not opening properly, it usually means there is some sort of software problems at the heart of it. But diagnosing the problem and repairing it can be very time consuming.

It really helps if the user is able to describe the problem in a bit more details, to get down to the underlying issue causing the problem of something not opening.

At Townsville Nerds we offer free diagnosis and scans. This can tell us a lot, and when we know what the problem is, we can offer you a 100% no obligation free quote. If you do not accept out quote, the diagnosis is still free.

Computer Not Getting to Logon Screen

When you turn your computer on and you do not get a logon screen – this is one of the times there could be a physical hardware problem.

If it is a hardware problem it is likely to be the internal physical hard drive or the memory modules have failed in some way.

The computers operating system and login screen will literally not open up for you to use and you will not have access to your data, programs and files.

You probably will not be able to do a reset either has the hard drive is damaged and has your recovery partition on it.

You might be able to recover the files from the hard drive by requesting data recovery diagnosis.

Depending on the state of the hard drive the data might be recoverable .

Once Logged in No Desktop

If you can log in to your computer via username and password but it doesn’t go any further to your desktop, or does but feels like it has frozen, you probably have some sort of operating system problem.

Your operating system is either Linux, Apple OSX or one of the Microsoft Windows Operating System.

The operating system is the environment in which your computer uses to operate and access resources like memory and graphics card, and files on your hard drive.

Many factors can effect the operating system, such as bad sectors on the hard drive, physical failure, viruses and data corruption. Even bad updates have created an inability to log on to your desktop and open your computer.

If the damage is too bad, you might need to reset your computer. Doing so will wipe all the files so you must not do this if you do not have all your files backed up.

Sometimes you operating system might only need a refresh or a restore to and earlier point in time.

Programs Not Opening When Clicked On

Each computer has many different programs on it. Some of these programs you can see, others run in the background and others help your computer run properly.

If the operating system is the work and environment of the computer, the applications and programs are the cities and towns.

There are many different types of programs like Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop and Google Chrome.

Each program and application does something very different and access the computers recourse differently.

If you can no longer open a a particular computer program when you click on, but can other programs, you probably have a problem with that specific application.

If you programs is part of a database which access specific files and data from previous work you might need to restore the program form a backup. If yo do not need older data, you can go through the uninstall process built into windows and download and install the program again.

Programs stop working for all sorts of reason. They can be poorly written, you resources that no longer exist in the computer, become corrupt due to an update or another program, or you might have just accidental deleted something.

System Settings Not Opening

System settings are very important parts of the computer that allow you to make important updates and changes to your computer.

Doing something wrong in the system can directly effect the stability of your computer and ability to open or turn it on.

If you can not open a certain system setting in your computer you could have a operating system problem, a physical hardware problem, another program could be using resources need for the settings, or there could be major corruptions or viruses on the system.

This is a particularity hard problem to diagnose and usually relies on a process of elimination which makes it time consuming.

A through system check is needed and this can be done with command prompts.

Do not worry if your system restarts during this process as it may need to many times to check and reference changes and make them as necessary.

Web Browser Not Opening

Your web browser is the application you use on your computer to access the internet.

There are many different web browser programs to choose from. The most popular is Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox.

Your web browser is your gateway to the internet. As so, you access your websites through your web browser and any other bad stuff which might be contained within the sites.

These bad bits of code can cause havoc on your computer and specially on your web browser, making it unstable and unable to open at times.

Even if you do not download virus like files intent on disturbing your web browser functionality, files you download with no malicious intent can also cause your web browser to not open.

If you want to extent functionality of your web browser to make it do things it was not designed to, you can down very helpful little files called plugins or ad-dons.

These ad-dons can give your web browser extra functionality but can also cause the browser to not open if something goes wrong because it conflicts with another add-on, is poorly made, or disrupted during the installation process.

Games Not Opening

Game problems such as not opening are usually die to driver issues.

The more intense the computer game, the more hardware such as a graphics card and memory you will need to support the games. And as games are getting much more recourse hungry, you need to have the latest hardware to support a lot of the games out there.

When you install a new computer hardware component, for the most part it does not work correctly unless you install the associated software and drives with it.

Drivers are bits of computer code which help the physical component talk to the operating system and games.

If something has happened to the drivers, they have been lost, corrupted or didn’t install probably, not only will that physical hardware component not be able to function correctly, the programs and games which reply on it will not operate properly or open either.

Computer Viruses

Computer viruses can cause all sorts of problems on your computer.

Not only can they spy on your, make things run as not intended and bombard you with advertisements, they can also destroy data and effect applications so you are unable to open them.

Some viruses called Ransomware, can also lock files so you are not able to open them until you pay the ransom.

Not many of my customers have chosen to pay the ransom to the criminals, but the ones who have, later told me once they did, their files were still not unlocked.

Computer viruses can effect every part of your computer and if you suffer from any of the above paragraphs, you could also unfortunately have a computer virus on your system.

Some viruses can easily be removed, some can destroy your data and not be recoverable and others can actually physical damage your hardware.