uTorrent Will Not Restart

User reported that uTorrent would not run after having closed the program to restart it. A message pops up saying that an instance of uTorrent is already running. This is normal behaviour of the program. uTorrent creates numerous network connections that can take at least two minutes to close after the program has been  stopped, so there is an interval required for these connections to time-out before the uTorrent process disappears from the system (as displayed using Task Manager). This can be verified by using TCPView to monitor the network connections.

Always allow a minimum of two minutes to elapse after closing uTorrent before attempting to start it up again. Failing to do this can (and frequently does) cause a lock-up condition where uTorrent will never fully close down and a system reboot is required to clear the "stuck" process from the system.

Old hands familiar with the DEC VMS operating system will probably remember the dreaded RWAST process state - it is a bit like that old chestnut.

Windows 7 hung at Logging Off phase

This problem would arise when attempting to shut down the PC. Most times it would hang while displaying the message "Logging Off" or on occasion it would get past that and then hang while displaying the message "Shutting Down". Investigation showed that the cause was a well-known one, namely an external USB disk drive connected to the system. These are often the source of Windows shutdown hangs and the correct procedure is to "Safely Disconnect Hardware", then power-off the external disk drive before attempting a shutdown. While it is possible to write a script which performs the "Safely Disconnect Hardware" during log-off and/or shutdown, the power-off still needs to be done manually. If the external USB disk drive is not powered down, it can also cause the PC to hang during the boot sequence when the BIOS attempts to configure USB ports.

Internet Browsers Not Connecting to Network

This problem arose after a small batch of Windows Updates had been applied as routine operations. Any internet browser program e.g. IE, Chrome, Firefox, Opera would report "Network Unavailable". Unable to connect to the router on 192.168.1.1 using a browser either. Other network programs e.g. FTP, uTorrent, ping to router and ping to google.com all working ok so it was not a generic network connectivity promlem. This had to be something specific to the HTTP protocol. Symptom consistent with blocking of tcp port 80 so inspected Windows Firewall rules for any anomaly - none found. Temporarily disabled firewall (unplugged DSL connection first for safety due to reasonable paranoia about such things) and problem persisted, so this eliminated any issue with the firewall. Malware scans all clean. Rebooting did not clear the problem. Used System Restore to roll-back to the time just before the Windows Updates had been applied and this cleared the problem. Reapplied updates manually and no problem apparent after that. I did not "get to the bottom" of this one, but the fix using System Restore worked well enough! The System Restore utility is truly a life-saver at times.

Windows 7 Recycle Bin stuck not emptying

Curious problem today noticed when using CCleaner. The cleaner program hung while trying to empty the system recycle bin. Killed off the CCleaner program and tried manual emptying of recycle bin, which did not respond. Opened cmd window as administrator and tried command rd /s /q {drive letter}:\$Recycle.bin on each drive in turn. This command hung when tried on drive Y: so killed cmd window. Tried running Explorer and selecting drive Y: which then hung. Killed Explorer window and rebooted. Tried running Explorer again and selected Y: which was ok this time. Folder found called RECYCLER. Deleted that. Also found same folder name on drive Z: so deleted that. Recycle bin working correctly now. All disk drives now show folder named $Recycle.bin in their root directory.

Drives Y: and Z: are external USB drives that used to be connected to a Windows XP machine so the name of the folder associated with the recycle bin is different to that now used for Windows 7. It just so happened that one file had just been deleted from drive Y: and this was the first file to be deleted since it had been connected to the Windows 7 machine several months earlier.

My conclusion is that when connecting an external drive to a Windows 7 machine where that drive has been used on earlier versions of Windows, it is a good idea to delete the folder RECYCLER in the root directory to prevent any problems with the future use of the recycle bin.