windows 8.1 hangs on Please Wait screen (restoreoptin)

Anonymous
2013-10-19T03:11:39+00:00

When logging in, a Please Wait screen shows up along with a Cancel button. I tried letting it sit there for more than half an hour but nothing happens. I noticed the application is letterboxed and I can use Win+D to see that the desktop show up. The screen stays on top blocking all mouse activity and most of my screen.

Eventually I logged into another account and found restoreoptin running and terminated it. That removed it from my original account however it will do it again if I log out and log back in.

Any ideas?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2013-10-25T17:25:19+00:00

<Modifying post to help other find the answer quickly>

I found another workaround that allows for still using skydrive, and further confirms the relationship to skydrive setup.

(This is the method I used)

  1. login to the affected account
  2. Press Windows Key + L to lock the computer
  3. Switch to a user account with administrator priveledges
  4. open task manager & switch to the "Processes" tab (Press "More Details" if don't see a processes tab)
  5. find restoreoptin.exe & end task that process
  6. switch back to affected account (Start Page, click your account name/picture, click the account you want to switch to)
  7. Open Charm menu (windows key + C), select "Settings", then Change PC Settings
  8. Select Skydrive
  9. Modify the File Storage, Camera Roll, and Sync Settings (not sure which one does the trick)
  10. logout & log back in
  11. you should no longer be prompted with the blank 'please wait' screen

Another workaround that should achieve the same, as posted by others:

  1. login to the affected account
  2. Press Windows Key + r
  3. Type:

taskkill /f /im restoreoptin.exe 4. Open Charm menu (windows key + C), select "Settings", then Change PC Settings 5. Select Skydrive 6. Modify the File Storage, Camera Roll, and Sync Settings (not sure which one does the trick) 7. logout & log back in 8. you should no longer be prompted with the blank 'please wait' screen

and just for completeness, you could also try:

  1. login to the affected account
  2. Press: Windows Key + r

Type:

taskkill /f /im restoreoptin.exe 3. Press: Windows Key + x

Press: a

Press: <Alt + Y>

(run cmd as administrator) 4. Type:

cd c:\windows\system32

restoreOptIn.exe /Ramp
  1. Complete the Wizard

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Anonymous
2014-01-03T18:25:43+00:00

I fixed it much more simply. I had to recently rebuild my dell xps 27 and started with 8.0. Setup everyone's account since I have a home network and domain setup. Then upgraded, I ran into the same issue as everyone here in the post. What I had to do to fix is is unassociated all the windows live/Hotmail/outlook accounts from the domain accounts and then re-apply them. This then asked me to verify that the account has permissions to skydrive, and asked for verification. Texted me, I put in the verification code and it was fixed on all accounts. Someone also mentioned making it a local account and then reassigning to your windows account. Seems to fix it as well.

Steps for Domain accounts:

  1. Remove association from your windows account
  2. Re-add your windows account
  3. verify that the pc has permissions to back up your info to sky drive/turn off sync with sky drive.

Windows Account:

  1. Make it a local account
  2. Re-add your windows account
  3. Verify that the pc has permissions to backup your info to sky drive/turn off sync with sky drive.

Appears to be a bug in the 8.1 upgrade where the pc and sky drive trust is broken, it didn't happen until I received a windows update, but I could see this happening if you download the patches during the upgrade process.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-02-21T23:58:21+00:00

    I do have an NVidia card as well.

    I have not tried the work around, but it looks like there may well be a conflict with the NVidia drivers. 

    If the others who have had this issue are still watching this thread, it may help Mocrosoft chase this down if they report whether they, too, have the NVidia cards.

    Thanks.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-02-21T23:49:19+00:00

    Does anyone here with these issues have Nvidia cards? I had this same problem but what I did was go into safe mode and uninstall the nvidia drivers reboot into safe mode the grey screen comes up again but it does finish setup. and I can use my desktop as normal.

    So I Reinstalled the Nvidia drivers in normal mode and rebooted same thing back stuck at grey please wait screen rebooted back into safe mode uninstalled all the drivers again rebooted back into normal mode everything was ok. 

    I Then did these steps in this thread.

    1. login to the affected account
    2. Press Windows Key + L to lock the computer
    3. Switch to a user account with administrator priveledges
    4. open task manager & switch to the "Processes" tab (Press "More Details" if don't see a processes tab)
    5. find restoreoptin.exe & end task that process
    6. switch back to affected account (Start Page, click your account name/picture, click the account you want to switch to)
    7. Open Charm menu (windows key + C), select "Settings", then Change PC Settings
    8. Select Skydrive
    9. Modify the File Storage, Camera Roll, and Sync Settings (not sure which one does the trick)
    10. logout & log back in
    11. you should no longer be prompted with the blank 'please wait' scree

    After I Did that i reinstalled the Nvdia drivers rebooted and everything is ok for me computer is working great.

    So it could be a bug with the new Nvidia drivers and this Skydrive update tho I would need more people to confirm if they have this issue too. this would help Microsoft kill this bug

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-02-19T05:17:07+00:00

    Doing this seemed to have fixed the problem on my laptop.  Thanks!

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