• The thing with Windows is that the three magical commands (sfc, that DISM tool, fixboot) will usually fix most weird OS problems. To the point where any Windows troubleshooting session should include either the results of the first two, or instructions to use them.

    Once SFC and DISM can’t fix your install, you reinstall Windows. There are alternatives, but if you’d know them you wouldn’t be asking random Windows users on a forum. You can figure out a lot by enabling various tracing and logging features, listing open file handles and tracking file system calls, but the moment you need to take out sysmon you’re either in for a weekend of troubleshooting or wasting your time.

    Similarly, there are oneliners for Linux that’ll reinstall every package installed on the system and that has helped me recover my broken systems several times.

    • captain_samuel_brady@lemm.ee
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      7 hours ago

      Magic may be an overstatement. I would be shocked if any of them fixed even 0.1% of the problems posted to Microsoft’s joke of a support forum where they were presented as solutions.