Elijah?

Kind of a big problem here. I reinstalled Windows 8 (as an upgrade from Windows 7) yesterday, as the one piece of software that was giving me trouble in it had recently updated to support it. Anyways, all was going well until I went to install updates last night - I shut down for the night and let it update, but when I turned my computer back on this morning, I'm getting a flashing black screen. The monitor turns on and off ever two seconds or so, and for the two seconds it is on, it is simply a black screen with no cursor present.

 

This is a problem because I cannot use shift+F8 to boot into any sort of diagnostics menu, as Windows 8 boots so fast that the time it actually is checking for the key combo is near nothing. And since I cannot boot normally... well, you get the idea.

 

Any suggestions? I would prefer not to completely reformat and reinstall, of course.

So today I preordered the HTC One X, after confirmation that my phone line was eligible for an upgrade (perfect timing!). This was an interesting purchase for me: it is my first Android device.

In 2007, I purchased an iPod Touch on release day. That was my first venture into a truly "smart" device that I could carry with me anywhere, that could do anything. I didn't end up getting a smartphone until 2010, when I bought the iPhone 4. That was after owning three generations of the iPod Touch, after being already very comfortable with iOS. In 2011, I began looking into Windows Phone. I was interested in it when it was first announced, but after Mango's annoucement, I decided to take the leap. I was breaking away from iOS- a leap of faith, almost.

I definitely didn't regret it. I bought a Dell Venue Pro, a fairly nice bit of hardware, though I do regret not going for a nicer (yet more expensive) HTC device. The Windows Phone experience, however, is in my opinion equal to or greater than iOS. I've used it since September of last year, and I really do love using it as a daily device.

I did, however, begin to get more seriously interested in Android after ICS was announced. I've always looked at Android, no matter how popular it has become, as sort of the "odd man out" of the group. It's never been very smooth, the experience is extremely fragmented across devices, and carriers/OEM's like to fill it with bloatware and unnecessary customization. On the other hand, it's an extremely open platform, has a great development community, and has a huge app store to boot. With ICS, however, Google really seems to be taking itself seriously. I finally made the choice to switch to Android when the HTC One X was announced, because holy crap, is that a beauty of a phone.

So yeah, here I go. Into the scary world of Android. After I've owned this for a time, I'll feel like I'm truly able to speak my opinion on which is the best of the three, which is something that not too many truly can. While I may have previously looked at Android with disinterest, HTC and Google have really stepped up their game. May 6th can't come soon enough.

So yesterday, these started appearing in my taskbar (running the Windows Consumer Preview, by the way). Tons of windows that have the default executable icon and when Aero peek is activated on them, nothing shows up. The moment I click the taskbar, click/right click them, or even open task manager they instantly disappear. They eventually start reappearing one by one.

It almost seems like malware-type behavior, but I've scanned a few times and neither Windows Defender nor AVG has found anything. Any ideas?