[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by Taf

I had a toilet time epiphany. Some of my best arrive on the loo.

Having deleted the last updates (all others are back to the middle of last year are Servicing Stacks so can't be uninstalled) I was still having the same problems.

On the loo, I thought, what if it is a program that is trying to "phone home" for some reason?

So I deleted my firewall, rebooted and BINGO! There was a Windows page asking me if I wanted to back-up to the cloud, and a couple of other questions relating to that. I clicked to bypass that, and Windows now boots correctly, even with the firewall reinstalled and active!

I shall now endeavour to spread the word.

Thanks for all the suggestions, they have at least increased my knowledge of Windows. :

You run a 3rd party firewall? windows built in passes all the leak tests I have run