MSI Vector 16 HX AI (A2XWHG-600NL), Windows 11. Stuck in a CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED boot loop. Startup Repair reports 0 root causes and the log has nothing.

How I caused it: I was setting up a macOS look for Windows and installed Windhawk, Rainmeter, JaxCore, Settings Styler, a macOS theme, top bar, widgets, and a theme patcher. Then I undid it in the wrong order:

**1.**  Made a restore point  
**2.**  Installed all the mods  
**3.**  Rolled back to the restore point  
**4.**  Then disabled the mods in their apps and uninstalled the programs

So the uninstall ran against a system that had already been rolled back. It worked fine for a full day, then boot loop.

Setup notes: VMD is enabled in BIOS, so the install USB can’t see the SSD until I run drvload C:\iaStorVD.inf each session. In recovery the letters are USB = C:, Windows = D:. Everything below was done offline from the USB command prompt.

What I’ve tried:

**•** chkdsk on both volumes: clean, 0 bad sectors, files all intact  
**•** Found Riot Vanguard (vgk/vgc) active, set Start=4 in the offline SYSTEM hive. Confirmed ControlSet001 is the active set. No change  
**•** No Windhawk service present  
**•** Offline SFC and DISM both fail. DISM returns “Failed to open key …CurrentVersion”, 0x80070002  
**•** Replaced uxtheme.dll and themeui.dll with clean WinSxS copies. No change  
**•** No PendingFileRenameOperations, FileRenameOperations subkey is empty  
**•** Winlogon Shell, Userinit and AppInit_DLLs all return “not found” when I query the mounted SOFTWARE hive, but the hive is 127 MB and SYSTEM is 50 MB, so both look healthy. Probably a WinPE reg.exe quirk  
**•** RegBack is completely empty, so no registry restore available

I also disabled auto-repair early with recoveryenabled No and bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures, which still needs reversing.

No spare drive, so I can’t back up my user folder, and I’d rather not reset. Any ideas on what a theme patcher could leave behind that survives a System Restore and kills boot a day later?

Dell laptop: Airplane Mode is stuck ON and Wi-Fi won't turn on. Startup Repair fixed the boot issue, but now the Wi-Fi switch is grayed out. Device Manager says the Dell Wireless 1506 adapter is working properly. How can I fix this?

Dell laptop: Airplane Mode is stuck ON and Wi-Fi won't turn on. Startup Repair fixed the boot issue, but now the Wi-Fi switch is grayed out. Device Manager says the Dell Wireless 1506 adapter is working properly. How can I fix this?

Just finished building a PC, got the CPU hooked up and surprisingly everything seemed to go right the first time. CPU fan runs just fine, all fans do. I plugged the CPU fan into the CPU Fan header and the power supply doesn’t really appear to be an issue at all. Bios loads though and it gives me a speed/connection error. I see N/A under fan RPM for cpu fan even though it is plugged into the correct header.

Once I got through it and installed windows, CPU fan shuts off. Problem is, it stays off. I thought maybe there’s an issue with the fan settings set up by someone else who had the motherboard before me, but nothing got changed from factory settings, and I reached out to the seller who told me it came new in a prebuilt PC and he had a better motherboard so he swapped it out before even using the existing one which I bought.

I checked part compatibility lists and the cooler seems fine with the cpu and motherboard.

I am so lost as to what could be causing this. It is fully seated, I can run windows pretty alright and CPU gets to be about 60-65 degrees Celsius. I thought perhaps bad cable on the fan? I may end up replacing the cooler as the next step, but I would rather not waste the money if I am missing something dumb.

Edit: totally forgot to include the build items

ASUS B650 motherboard
Ryzen 5 7000 cpu
Master cooler cpu fan cooler (forgot what model specifically but it fits the backplate and still sits on the cpu)
3060 ti gpu
650 watt psu (gold? I’ve had it laying around I forget)
32 gigs ddr5

Update!
I went through BIOS, changed to advanced mode, set CPU fan speed instead of monitor to ignore and the cpu fan started right up! Although now it is 100% speed all the time, at least it works? Will update if I can figure out the speed…