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A Serious Problem Emerging After Windows 11 Repair Version

Anonymous
2025-04-28T15:22:00+00:00

Hello! I will tell you about an incident I experienced [NOTE: This is actually a question, never a story or fiction. It is really an abnormal situation]:

A few days ago, I could not open Windows Defender on the computer. When I tried to open it, it gave the following error and the background remained black:

Page unavailable

Your IT administrator has limited access to some areas of this application and the item you are trying to access is unavailable. Contact the IT help desk for more information.

It gave an error called. I tried my own solutions from him:

Registry editing

Permission editing

And none of the methods worked. Then (April 27) I was trying to delete the value of avast from regedit at that time, but it was not deleted somehow (not very important). Anyway, after that I entered the following command in cmd as administrator:

rmdir /s /q C:\Programdata\Avast Software

Then the files were exactly like this (And I realized later that some files were deleted):

Avast Software

Microsoft(I didn't look inside)

NVIDIA

NVIDIA Corporation

Packages(I didn't look inside)

USOPrivate

USOShadered(I think it was full)

And the things that the rmdir command deleted:

ASUS

Microsoft Onedrive

regid.1991-06.com.microsoft

SoftwareDistribution

ssh

And the other things were intact. However, I noticed that the following folder was empty:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools

(Important: I don't know if this is completely empty, but there's a 90% chance it was.) And because these weren't there, the following things wouldn't open, registry editor, event viewer, etc. shortcuts. (In other words, when I type registry instead of regedit.exe, it wouldn't open, etc. In short, none of the shortcuts would open without typing .exe.) Then I noticed this and did the following in the administrator cmd:

sfc /scannow

However, I noticed that it couldn't find any missing files. Then, as a last resort, I chose to do the following:

I went to the Settings menu, went to Windows Update instead of Recovery, and clicked Fix problems using Windows Update. Then the computer installed this version. After the updates were finished, a restart message appeared, so I clicked it. And it restarted and the following screen appeared:

Updates are in progress. %XX(there was a number instead)

Please keep your computer on.

When this screen reached 100%, the computer restarted. After the computer restarted, I was greeted by a screen like this (However, when this screen came, the Windows startup sound did not come, it had skipped the lock screen and none of the shortcut keys worked):

Since I didn't know what to do on this screen, I held down the power button on the computer for 5 seconds. Then I turned the computer back on by pressing the power button. And this BIOS screen opened normally, but what confused me the most was that it was like the second boot and the Windows loading circle booted much thicker. (And this was the first time this happened) Then the computer turned on again and that screen appeared again:

Updates in progress %xx

Please keep your computer on.

After this screen passed, that screen appeared again (The lock screen was skipped again and this screen appeared, by the way, the Windows startup sound was not heard):

I didn't touch the power button at all and tried the following shortcut keys:

control + shift + esc

right - left click with the mouse (at a random location)

Then the computer restarted itself shortly after doing these things. Then the computer turned on and this time that screen didn't come and there was no abnormality in the boot. The lock screen came and it was a normal lock screen (profile picture, everything was there) then I entered my PIN on the lock screen. And I entered but the "Welcome" text opened much longer than before. Then I tested the shortcut tools to understand this situation and it was working. And Windows Defender was fixed. (i.e. it was opening without any errors) Then I immediately opened Regedit and the key I looked at was this:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

The subdirectory was this (and slightly different):

BCD00000000(Default)

COMPONENTS(After this abnormal Windows Repair)

DRIVERS(Default)

HARDWARE(Default)

SAM(Default)

Schema(After this abnormal Windows Repair)

SECURITY(Default)

SOFTWARE(Default)

SYSTEM(Default)

So I ran Disk Cleanup and selected everything except the (Windows.old) folder. And cleaned it. Then I restarted and this time the lock screen loaded at default speed. And these abnormal keys I mentioned were automatically deleted:

COMPONENTS

Schema

And now I think Windows is working more stable. However, the Windows.old folder is still full and is 23gb in total. That is, almost a quarter of Windows. And there are Windows.old's things in it. And it was created while doing this repair process. That is, there was no such folder by default when I installed Windows from scratch. Please tell me what else I should do about this situation. Let me also state that I checked everything, everything works normally, the speed is the same, the CPU is normal, the RAM is normal, all the components are normal. However, should I delete Windows.old? Or would it be better not to delete it? Please explain it in detail. [Special NOTE: All of these experiences were really a very difficult process and I could not understand any of them, and they are completely different from what normal users experience. So, it can be likened to fiction, but it is not. I really experienced such things and I saw Windows Repair do this for the first time. At the same time, everything I wrote was written with full detail and flawlessly, and without missing even the smallest detail.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Windows update

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-05-02T22:02:24+00:00

    That "windows.old" folder exists if you want to "roll-back", i.e., uninstall the latest version of Windows. You have a limited number of days (10?) to do the roll-back. That roll-back will use files in that "windows.old" folder. After a while, the roll-back will not be allowed.

    At that time, if Windows does not delete that folder, you can do so.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-05-02T21:13:46+00:00

    Hi MovelessMove,

    Thank you for your Reply.

    You can delete the Windows.old folder to free up some space and it may also help us fix the issue with windows security.

    Inside the Windows.old folder is the files from the previously installed windows operating system from before. I suggest you back up some files inside it before deleting it.

    Let me know how it goes.

    Best Regards,

    Bench

    Microsoft Moderator

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-04-29T14:14:04+00:00

    Hello! Thanks for your answer. But I want to ask clearly:

    Why did this happen? Is it related to Programdata? Or is another registry setting corrupted?

    Why were these keys deleted after disk cleanup or reboot?

    Will there be a problem if I delete Windows.old? (Everything is normal now)

    I also couldn't solve the following problem (even though I formatted it):

    application specific permission settings

    Windows.SecurityCenter.WscDataProtection

    COM Server application with CLSID

    None

    APPID does not grant Local Run permission to NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM user with SID (S-1-5-18) at address LocalHost (Using LRPC) running in application container None SID (None). This security permission can be changed using Component Services administrative tool.

    Event ID: 10016

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-04-28T21:35:58+00:00

    Hi MovelessMove,

    Thank you for Posting in Microsoft Community.

    Lets work together to get this sorted out.

    Have you tried downloading the Windows Security Update? Go to this link and download it select the 64-bit or ARM64 if your pc is ARM 64 Windows Security Update - Microsoft Support

    Try to disconnect any work accounts as they may be the cause of the issue.

    I Hope it works,

    Best Regards,

    Bench

    Microsoft Moderator

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