DISM and OS aren't the same version

I have tried the inplace upgrade at some point in the last few weeks and it didn't help. Sometimes SFC will find and repair problems, sometimes it says no problems were found and, on a few occasions, it's told me there were problems it couldn't fix. I haven't mastered the art of interpreting the details of the CBS.log yet but there was even a perio when it didn't save details to the log. My problems started when the update from Win 8.3 was corrupted and, apparently, effectively eating itself (for lack of a better description). After a week-long tech support session, they finally reinstalled Win 10. A few weeks later, I found I had the same issues beginning all over again and had to go through the whole week-long process again, which resulted in a second reinstallation. After that, it was pretty good until the update to 20H0, which left me in another constant loop of troubleshooting and a tech suggested I repair that installation which caused me another ton of grief, losing files (he swore that wouldn't happen) and still troubleshooting so I bit the bullet, bought a new external hard drive, backed everything up to that and used the Update Assistant to move to 21H1. That was followed by a few months of complete aggravation because the entire system became erratic and unpredictable, and was worse than before so I went back to the Update Assistant and moved on to 21H2 which is probably the most reliable it's been since 20H0 but I still have issues with system hangs, browser hangs, updates not installing, the touch screen (which I've recalibrated a couple of times) still displays odd patterns of dots and does weird things like switching tabs or opening a shortcut from the desktop that I haven't clicked or changing from normal print to random super zoom when it feels like it... just not as often. I've ditched the 3rd-party security suite and have gone completely with Defender which doesn't interfere as much and I try to keep my drivers as up to date as possible but it feels like I spend way too much time troubleshooting and not enough getting stuff done. I also read something in one of the articles about DISM drivers possibly being out of date but can't figure out exactly where I'd even find those if they're really a thing. I got all stressed when the May update wouldn't install because they made such a big deal about the security issues and glitches it was supposed to resolve, thinking and hoping that could be my big solution and then I heard that update was really problematic too. I never got it to install but now the June update is resisting installation. It's just really frustrating and confusing at this point because nothing works for very long if at all and I can't afford a new machine. Why can't Microsoft just put out a product it can support and provide updates that don't cause more trouble than they fix?

Interesting. I wonder why that wasn't explained with the part I loosely quoted. It had me thinking that was the problem when it didn't find/fix anything despite having difficulties. Now I'm unsure about what the trouble is.

Thanks.

HI, what result do you get if you run Command Prompt (Admin)>sfc /scannow

You could run the Inplace upgrade to repair the system: Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com) You get the option to keep your Apps and files.

>"I understand that DISM needs to be the same version (or higher) than the OS version. I'm unsure how or why it happens that my DISM version is behind that of my OS but I'd like to get it caught up."

All 1904x builds share same code base and some systems tools are showing that original build 19041 and those tools aren't updated for each 19042, 19043 or 19044 versions.

Its not clear how you are running DISM

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system-files-79aa86cb-ca52-166a-92a3-966e85d4094e