Windows 7 DCS (Debug Only Window)

[Leipzig]

I have an old Gateway laptop running Windows 7 hat has been used for the past 12 years only for an accounting program. This morning the program would not startup. I re-booted and noticed in the bottom left corner of the screen a small rectangular box with text that reads: CDS (Debug Only Window).

I have never seen anything like this before.

When I move the cursor to the box an hour glass appears. The box does not open and I can not drag it to a new location. Right clicking and left clicking do nothing.

I am getting no error messages or any kind of notices.

Any ideas as to what is going on?

 

[hacxx]

I have an old Gateway laptop running Windows 7 hat has been used for the past 12 years only for an accounting program. This morning the program would not startup. I re-booted and noticed in the bottom left corner of the screen a small rectangular box with text that reads: CDS (Debug Only Window).

I have never seen anything like this before.

When I move the cursor to the box an hour glass appears. The box does not open and I can not drag it to a new location. Right clicking and left clicking do nothing.

I am getting no error messages or any kind of notices.

Any ideas as to what is going on?

Run a antivirus scan.

 

[Leipzig]

Run a antivirus scan.

I have run Norton and it came back saying it found no threats. I have attached a .pdf file showing a screen capture of my desktop. The little gray box in the lower left corner is the CDS (Debug Only Window) image that I am talking about.

I tried googling for CDS (Debug Only Window) and came up empty.

If I try starting my accounting program (Sage/Peachtree Complete 50) it begins but then locks up. If I go to Task Manager it shows the program in applications but not responding and it stays that way. I gave it an hour while I ran some errands The same happens when I try to start Mozilla Thunderbird, but when I started Mozilla's Fox Fire that program worked worked.

The computer is old, but it sure would be nice to having working well enough to produce current back-ups.

Again, any suggestions?

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Sounds like it may be the accounting program rather than a general Windows fault.
What accounting program are we talking about.
BTW No personal offense but a 12 year old Gateway laptop? Ew!

 

[Ultimately 7]

I have an old Gateway laptop running Windows 7 hat has been used for the past 12 years only for an accounting program. This morning the program would not startup. I re-booted and noticed in the bottom left corner of the screen a small rectangular box with text that reads: CDS (Debug Only Window).

I have never seen anything like this before.

When I move the cursor to the box an hour glass appears. The box does not open and I can not drag it to a new location. Right clicking and left clicking do nothing.

I am getting no error messages or any kind of notices.

Any ideas as to what is going on?

This is interesting, but perhaps these processes will help you eliminate the notification:

Make a restore point and remove the accounting program and reboot to see if the notification still exists.

If it still does, open msconfig and go to the services tab and deselect all services and reboot to see if the notification still exists...

By this time, it should not exist, but if it does, and with services still disabled, open Task Scheduler and in the very LH column, select Task Scheduler Library, and in the main panel, R.Click on each item and select "Disable"... to stop all these tasks and then reboot to see if the notification persists...

If it still does, disable all of your startup programs (Google that) and then reboot for persistence...

If it still persists, go back to msconfig and reboot into Safe Mode without Internet and see if the notification persists.

At any time you reboot and the notification vanished, then, one-by-one, re-enable each service until you have the culprit, and if that goes smooth, one-by-one, re-enable each scheduled task... and subsequently startup programs one-by-one.

That's a lot of reboots, but you are shooting in the dark here.

I suspect that the accounting software and such may have had some running scripts, and that disconnecting it from its original use and perhaps removing some former users, and perhaps some issues with a Domain usage may be causing this. The reason I mention this is that the only time I recall hearing of "debugging", is when that term is used in the same conversation as scripts and scripting, yes?

See this article:

"How to find which scripts running in background"
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ckground/62b3ae1a-3142-4dbc-8946-82a7c001fb78

Unless I know more, then this is what I would do., and my focus would be on all the leftover stuff on the PC that I do not need, and uninstalling/disabling it/deleting it.

All of this should take an hour or so, if you want to avoid a fresh install of the Windows 7 OS.

All the best to you and yours...
- - -

Edit... Also, try creating a new user and log in to see if this notification persists.

 

[Leipzig]

Thanks for the suggestions. I made a restore point and then attempted to uninstall the accounting program. I say attempted because the Windows uninstall feature is not working. I highlight the program and click uninstall and the hard drive light flickers away then stops flickering and nothing had happen. The program is still listed. I rebooted and tried once again to uninstall different program with the same result. I think this old laptop is headed to the boneyard.

I was able to copy all of the accounting files to an external hard drive and load them on to another computer which I had setup with the accounting program. Fortunately that worked fine so I have lost anything of value.

 

[Hotrod369]

Try using a 3rd party uninstaller. I use Revo Uninstaller which works pretty darn good.

 

[cyrillino14]

Can you load windows 7 on top of itself as an upgrade? Maybe some critical windows system file got overwritten or corrupted...?