Vista: Unable to Open Control Panel

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I've actually solved this myself, but felt it might be helpful to post the information here.

Symptom: Unable to open the control panel in Vista. When trying to open, the window opens for ~10 seconds, before vanishing. No error message presents itself.

Resolution: Ensure that the Software Licensing Service is running. If this service is not running, CP will not load. This may also affect some other windows (ie, I couldnt open Windows Update from the help files either).

Hope this helps other people.

 

Thanks Fergal

 

Thanks fergal, just to add to that, some of the other symptoms are opening the CP and all you see is the blank control panel window but with no icons inside.

 

Thanks for that will come in handy when eventually I won't have any choice but to move over to vista