How to fix some common windows problems with a few commands

Hello everyone,

The purpose of this guide is to fix some common windows problems (like those horrid BSOD's and crashes) quickly with a few commands.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: these commands will NOT remove malware. If you have a malware problem please go to the "Virus, trojan, spyware and malware removal logs" forum

Preparation

To begin, make sure you have everything listed below:


-Administrator access (Make sure you have an Administrator account by going to control panel ----> User accounts and family safety ---------> User accounts and check if your account name has "Administrator" under it.

-A valid internet connection

-A computer still good enough to run command prompt



The steps

Step 1: Search for "cmd.exe", right click it and click "Run As Administrator."

Step 2: Type sfc /scannow (replacment for a period so people won't say "Wait but sfc /scannow isnt a command cmd says so!!!!!" just because there's a period at the end of it ). This command will take a few minutes so get a glass of lemonade, sit down and relax . If the action was successful it should display something similar to "Windows resource protector found corrupt files and was able to repair them, details are included in the CBS.log file" Or say it didn't find any corruptions at all. If it did not, repeat these steps in safemode. If running it in safemode also wasn't successful, run the next command (if you have Windows 8), and then run this one again. If that doesn't work, well, you may have some pretty serious problems with your computer , but you can still try the command after.

Step 2: Restart. SFC's actions will only work after restarting

Step 3: Run this command: Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth (again, period replacement). This is only for windows 8. This can take 15 to even 45 minutes, so you may want to hang out in your living room and watch an episode of your favorite TV show . Once this is done either run sfc /scannow if it didn't work before or move on.

Step 4: Finally, type chkdsk /r [drive name here, if you don't know what that is type C:] if you are on windows 7 or earlier. Follow the instructions onscreen. Again, this will take a few minutes. For windows 8 the process is much faster. Just go to this PC ------> [drive name, usually C:], right click the drive, click properties, then click the tools tab and click the check button. If you see a message saying "you don't need to scan the drive", just click the "scan drive" button anyways to be sure. It will only take 3-5 minutes so this time you may just want to stare at the loading bar ;)

Step 5: Hope that you've actually fixed the computer. If not you may want to run SFC again and submit the CBS.log on one of the windows forums at the top of the forum.



Thanks for checking out the tutorial/mini guide, and if you have any questions ask away below


-jman005

Just a few things about your little tips.

If the SFC /scannow repaired something, you'll have to restart your computer in order for these repairs to take effects, otherwise it won't work. Also, you can use the CBS.log to find which files couldn't be fixed, and someone who knows how to use SFCFix can help you fix these (someone like Go To Power).

The DISM command like you posted isn't right (it's not complete), here's the one you want to use Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth. Also, that command is only available on Windows 8 and above, not on Windows XP, Vista or 7 (they have a different usage). So if SFC finds corrupted files and cannot fix them on Windows 7 (for example), you cannot use the DISM command to repair these files. From there you'll have two checkboxes. The first one will be a "chkdsk /f", while the second one is a "chkdsk /r". Also, you'll most likely be asked to shut down your computer to run that operation, so it'll asks you to schedule the chkdsk on the next reboot.

Using CHKDSK /f isn't really useful, since it won't locate bad sectors on the drive, nor recover data from these if possible. It's better to use /r instead, since /r implies /f, all you have to enter is chkdsk /r. Also the "Check" option you are talking about is also available for Windows XP throught Windows 8.1 (and even Windows 10), not only Windows 8.

Also just so you know, very "few" problems are fixed by these commands. They are mostly used to assure the integrity of the system before applying other fixes, solutions, etc. They are common commands to run when troubleshooting an issue, but it's rare that they'll actually fix anything, even less BSODs that are mostly caused by bad software or drivers.