Any advice to fix a corrupted Windows installation?

Question

Hello all,

I have been struggling with what appears to be a corrupted Windows installation for the past few months (i.e., this has been occurring well before the recent scare with Windows updates). My PC was built last May and worked flawlessly up until around March or April of this year when I noticed that many, many issues began to occur after a Window update around those months. When this first happened, I ran multiple tests on my system to see what could be causing the errors: temperatures were of no concern, system scans came back negative for errors (more on that in a moment), my CPU had no issues during stress tests, etc.

I have tried system scans with sfc /scannow, as well as with DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth. These scans have either crashed or have told me that there are no issues present. This has happened when I have used DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth, too.

I tried reinstalling Windows through the official installation media only to be met with anything from a crash during the installation process, to reaching 100% of the install and then the window closing when the process has moved on to restart the computer. I have tried this many, many times. I thankfully was able to reinstall it in June and everything worked as intended for a few days, and then the issues began to reappear.

My computer will randomly crash with a variety of error codes (I do not have them on hand right now as they would flash on the screen for a moment before disappearing, rendering me unable to write down, but I will update this post with any error codes that I am able to write down) even if I am not doing anything at all; Discord, FireFox, and Chrome will randomly crash or, in the case of the latter two, close or crash tabs that will reload perfectly and then crash again, etc. I grow increasingly frustrated every day that these issues continue to happen, especially when it gets in the way of my work.

Here is information about my computer: I also have WSL installed for development on a personal project. I have one SSD upon which WSL and Windows are both installed. I am uncertain if this is a smoking gun for the issues I am facing or if it's irrelevant as I have had this same setup since last year when my computer was working perfectly, suggesting to me that both being on the same SSD is of no concern, but I am unfamiliar with whether or not it is of concern.

Here are specific issues I am facing that may give a clue to what the underlying issue is beyond a corrupted Windows installation:

1. Issues related to Windows processes:
   1. I am unable to open the Settings app whatsoever -- the app will open for around 2-3 seconds and then close
      1. This includes the volume mixer, sound settings, data and time settings, etc.
      2. Because of this, I am even unable to check for updates or repair my PC with the built-in Windows 11 repair tool
         1. I am still able to open the control panel, however
   2. Some graphics are bugged
      1. For example, whenever I raise or lower the volume on my system, the graphic showing the volume level with the speaker and the bar does not appear. All that appears is a blank grey box.
      2. Not sure if this is an issue with the graphics or something else, but I am unable to Alt + Tab anymore, and when I do so, my taskbar disappears and then reloads a moment later.
2. Other issues:
   1. Chrome and FireFox
      1. Tabs will close or crash randomly as discussed previously
   2. Discord
      1. I will be disconnected from calls, have the entire app crash on me, have my login information occasionally removed and be forced to sign back in, etc.

I will be immensely grateful if anyone is able to help me through this. I miss the days when my system ran perfectly as these past few months have been incredibly irritating and frustrating. Thank you for your help and for reading this far.

Answer 1

Hi, I'm Mite and I'm here to help.

It seems that the system is corrupted. Have you tried using the Windows Installation iso file to repair the system? If not, you can give it a try and see whether it can repair your system.

Here are the steps:

Download the Windows installation iso file first. Then, decompress the iso file. Open the folder from the decompressed files. You should see a setup.exe file. Open it. Follow the instructions to install Windows. There should be an option allowing you to keep your personal files and apps. That option is for repairing Windows, though it is very similar to reinstalling Windows, but it is not. However, I still recommend you to backup important files.

Here are the links to download Windows installation iso files:

Windows 11:

https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11