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
    2013-10-22T08:38:55+00:00

    I am having exactly the same issue. Since I have a single user account, it is extremely difficult to actually kill RestoreOptIn.exe (have to rotate the tablet, which gives me enough screen space available under that blue screen to launch a task manager, get my MS Bluetooth keyboard out, move it with alt-space, down arrow, enter, down arrows, select restoreoptin, click end task, and finally press enter as the final confirmation).

    I checked the windows updates, forced the computer to install all the latest updates aaaaand... nothing changed. So I created a new account, and checked that I could actually log into that one without issue, put all the data from the old account into the new one, and deleted the old account.

    Problem solved. But what a ghastly issue and very very unintuitive fix. I hope Microsoft will come up with a fix!

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-10-24T01:14:12+00:00

    I am having exactly the same issue. Since I have a single user account, it is extremely difficult to actually kill RestoreOptIn.exe (have to rotate the tablet, which gives me enough screen space available under that blue screen to launch a task manager, get my MS Bluetooth keyboard out, move it with alt-space, down arrow, enter, down arrows, select restoreoptin, click end task, and finally press enter as the final confirmation).

    I checked the windows updates, forced the computer to install all the latest updates aaaaand... nothing changed. So I created a new account, and checked that I could actually log into that one without issue, put all the data from the old account into the new one, and deleted the old account.

    Problem solved. But what a ghastly issue and very very unintuitive fix. I hope Microsoft will come up with a fix!

    I had this issue yesterday and found another fix for it.  Basically it seems that I decided to opt in for the Sky Drive cloud storage option that appears once you sign in to Windows 8.1 for the first time and it is that service that is displaying  the 'Please Wait' with the cancel button and just not responding (even though your desktop and everything is fine in the background).

    What I did was put my computer to sleep (to sign out), turn it on again, click the standby button, hold down the Shift key and click Restart to access the advanced system options and restored my computer, using System Restore, to an earlier time (I also turned off my internet and unplugged all USB devices to be safe).

    Once the restore was complete I signed in again and, because it was now restored to a previous time, once again Windows 8 asked me if I wanted to use SkyDrive to restore files (I believe this is the RestoreOptIn service mentioned) and I chose the option to not use this feature and my Windows has been fine ever since.

    So, to summarise:

    1. Use System Restore to restore your machine to an earlier time.
    2. When done, sign in again and, when asked, choose not to use SkyDrive.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-10-24T01:42:07+00:00

    Very interesting, if it's linked to SkyDrive.

    At the time when the problem occurred, I now remember my network connectivity was horrendously slow. As in, a few bytes per second.

    Was this also the same for you? Or other people experiencing this issue?

    I do hope that someone from Microsoft will have a look at this thread.

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