SOLVED: Vista Control Panel Blank, Not Coming Up

Shocking: Something or Somebody is trying to take control of my computer away from me.

PROBLEM: CONTROL PANEL NOT COMING UP, IS BLANK!

As you are beginning to notice I like to stay on top of things with my computer. So last night I was going to access Vista Control Panel (CP)on one of my laptops (Acer Aspire 5570z Vista SP2). I hit Start/Control Panel. The window pops up and the Control Panel does not get populated with graphics and options. Vista Control Panel stays empty, blank! I wait.

Nothing. The silly light green bar over the top of the window grows toward the right, almost reaching the right edge. As if there is progress made. You know better. Nada. Zilch. Blank white window. No control panel.

I left the computer like that overnight. No dice. No Control Panel.

WORKAROUND: CLASSIC VIEW

Luckily a click on "Classic View" brings up all the items in the Control Panel so I can do whatever I wanted. And, miraculously, I can click "back" to Control Panel Home, and the graphical, default Control Panel (CP)pops up! Problem solved?

WHAT OTHERS FOUND

A quick search for similar problems on the internet finds a variety of possible causes: Slowness caused by indexing of hundreds of thousands of files. This I excluded because my problem is not slowness, my problem is CP not working period. Ever. Plus I do not index anyways.

Another site http://forums.tweakguides.com/showthread.php?t=5228 suggests again that "slowness" of the Control Panel might be due to other applications such as Apple QuickTime. Indeed, I know that is a part of CP display. And, yes I remember, just yesterday Apple popup came up, offerin the upgrade of my Safari browser to 4.0 something. Which I declined. Is this Apple playing being offended?

Yet others http://forums.techguy.org/windows-xp/541064-why-does-take-control-panel.html suggest that control panes might take a long time because of lengthy registry searches. Could be but, this is not lengthy, this takes forever.

Finally, I came across a quite likely solution: Spicks and Speckled at whirlpool.net.au came up with the problem and the solution that will probably work, it just looks too good not to work http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/974866.html :

I came across this problem – but I'd been disabling lots of services as most weren't needed.
I found I couldn't open the control panel, or the power plan (power options) tool.
I fixed this with (from command line – i.e. start->run->cmd)
sc config SLUINotify start= auto
sc start SLUINotify
sc query SLUINotify
You can also fix with this command line tool to get into the services control gui (since I couldn't start it with the control panel)
services.msc
look for> SL UI Notification Service
I found the service does not stay running, but my control panel works now as well as the power plan changer. I guess it must start and stop as needed.

I also observed, like him, that the power button in he Vista Tray did not work properly. Left clicking on the battery button brings up the "Fully charged 100%" window, but I can not go into the power options, just like he describes. Well I was able to get into the "Classic View" in my case (see Workaround above) so I went there.

SOLUTION? EXPERIMENT WILL TELL

Went to "Start/Control Panel/"Classic View"/Administrative Tools/Services. Indeed I find SL UI Notification Service set to "Manual" and not started. Changed that to "Automatic" and started the service. By the way SL stands for Software Licensing Activation and Notification and UI maybe stands for User Interface? Sounds really like Apple was trying to do yesterday, install software?

Anyways, starting the SL UI works great. Does it solve the problem?? Let's see: NOT !! No Dice! I also restart Software Licensing service which in turn restarts SL UI. Still, no solution.

NO DICE, FOR NOW. STAY TUNED

No solution for now. I'll restart the laptop to see if that does it. Then maybe, Ill install Apple Safari version 4. In the meantime, you and I can use the Workaround above.

FIVE MINUTES LATER... PROBLEM SOLVED

Couldn't stay away with an unsolved problem... I restarted the laptop and Control Panel works like new. The solution therefore is: Set Service SL UI on Automatic. See EXPERIMENT WILL TELL above. Then restart Vista.

I SUCCEEDED WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Do you have the same problem? Let me know, leave a comment. Have you solved this or similar problem? Let me know, leave a comment. Do you know why I had to restart Vista to fix this? Let me know, leave a comment! Cheers!