sfc

Infopackets Reader Carol G. writes: " Dear Dennis, Since last week, my Windows 10 computer keeps showing a constant spinning blue circle instead of a white pointer. The spinning blue circle will appear for minutes at a time, then switch back to the ... white pointer for a brief second, then back to the spinning blue circle. Most of the time I can't click the Start button (or anything, for that matter) because the spinning blue circle won't let me click on anything. Even if the white pointer appears, if I click on something it takes 5 minutes for anything to happen. It's maddening! I've tried ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Joe P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. I am trying to install 'ON1 Photo Editor' on my machine which requires Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable. The installer package for the ON1 Photo Editor ... includes the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable as part of the installation. During the installation, however, the Microsoft Visual C++ hangs during the install and does not proceed. I have let it sit for over 24 hours and nothing happens - the installation hangs and ultimately fails . I should also mention that my Windows Update is also broken ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bob G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am running Windows 10. Last week my system attempted to perform a major upgrade (to version 1803, April Creators Update), but the update failed and it rolled back to version 1709 (Fall Creators ... Update). Now when I try and sign into Windows 10, it says: 'Preparing Windows', then it says ' We can't sign into your account . This problem can often be fixed by signing out of your account and then signing back in. If you don't sign out now, any files you create or changes you make will be lost'. I then get a notification near the clock that says ' ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Cindy' writes: " Dear Dennis, I have Windows 8.1 on my laptop which has been very, very slow. I decided to upgrade to Windows 10 hoping this would fix my problems, however I keep getting a message that ' The installation failed ... in the First_Boot phase with an error during Sysprep Operation ' (pic). I have been researching this problem for 2 days using Google, and have yet to find a fix that makes sense! Absolutely nothing I do seems to work! Can you PLEASE help? " Update 20200116 : I'm getting a lot of emails from folks asking for help on this. If you want this problem ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Jeff W. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am having a problem with Windows 10 not updating - it keeps telling me that KB4058258 and KB4074595 won't install. It will attempt to install the updates, then when I check Windows Update again ... those two updates are there again. KB4058258 is a cumulative update for Windows 10 whereas KB4074595 is a security update for Adobe Flash update. Can you help? " My response: I asked Jeff if he would like me to connect to his system using my remote desktop support service , and he agreed. I have been receiving a lot of inquiries about this lately and ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Phoebe A. writes: " Dear Dennis, Today I tried to free up some space on my C drive by moving files over to my external hard drive, but Windows gave me an error message, stating that 'Error during copy: the request could not be ... performed because of an I/O device error'. I've also tried using 'TeraCopy' to copy files over, but it keeps freezing on the same files. Can you help? " My response: If you receive an error that says "the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error" when trying to copy or move a file, that usually (but not always) indicates bad ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Terrel W. writes: " Dear Dennis, I installed Windows 10 on my laptop about 2 months ago. Just recently the laptop has been extremely slow; whenever I click on anything, the cursor will spin for literally 3 to 5 minutes before I am ... able to do anything. Any action I take on the computer - whether it's a right click on the desktop, or launching the browser - results in the same spinning. This is not normal behavior! I have tried the Windows 10 Reset but it gives me an error. Can you help? " My response: I asked Terrell if he'd like me to connect to his system using my remote ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Gerry O. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am running windows 8.1 and have a program that reports an ntdll.dll failure. Will an upgrade to Windows 10 (not clean install) create a new ntdll.dll file, would I need to do a clean install of ... windows 10? Is there another way of getting a clean ntdll.dll file without upgrading? " My response: The file ntdll.dll is typically located in c:\windows\system32, and in very old versions of Windows (such as Windows XP), in the c:\i386 directory. The ntdll.dll file is a legitimate dynamic link library file (DLL) and is referred to as the "NT Layer ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Alice G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have not been able to download any Windows Updates for a few months now. I stumbled across your guide on ' How to Fix: Windows Update won't Update ', but when I try and run 'sfc /scannow', I ... receive an error message that 'Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation.' I am basically stuck at this step and am not sure what to do. Researching Google on the Windows Resource Protection error comes up with extremely confusing and conflicting jargon. Can you please tell me how to fix this ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bill S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just upgraded to Windows 10. Every time I boot my computer, I receive an error message that says 'Windows Command Processor has stopped working'. There are at least 3 of these notifications ... whenever I sign into Windows 10, and they only happen after I login. I have searched high and low to try and figure out why I keep receiving this error message but I'm completely stumped. Can you help? " My response: This is a good question. When I first upgraded to Windows 10, I also received the error message that 'Windows Command Processor has stopped ... (view more)