Windows 10: DISM and SFC

Greetings, I am asking for some guidance regarding the above Windows features. I ask, knowing that perhaps there is no concrete answer to my question. Let me set it up. I was trying to unfreeze a friend's machine. It was his second machine and hadn't been used in months. He thought that Norton trashed a Windows Update, as that was when the machine froze. I did the F8 and got into the pre-boot environment. There were no restore points, so I went to startup repair. That got me into a functioning Windows state. Very sluggish, but functioning. First, I disabled Windows Update service temporarily. I created a restore point, did chkdsk - OK. Ran DISM /ScanHealth - OK. Ran SFC /Scannow - was unable to repair all files. I then Disabled Norton, re-enabled Windows Update and let the updates happen. Then I re-enabled Norton. Windows didn't feel right (I know that's subjective), so I reverted to the System Restore point I had created. After 8 hours, I figured it either was done without telling, or it had crashed. I restarted the computer and Automatic Startup repair kicked in. In hindsight, I wonder if Norton messed with the restore. ASR couldn't fix the machine. I booted into the installation media and opened repair. Startup Repair couldn't fix the computer. Tried the Restore point and the OS could not be found. I repaired the boot files and the OS was found but it wouldn't boot into the login screen. Thanks for staying with me. I just wanted to list the steps so you know how I got to the bad state. So...I opened the command prompt and attempted to run SFC /Scannow. It wouldn't run in the recovery environment. I then ran BCDedit and found the OS. I added the source option to SFC, but it couldn't initialize. Thinking it was a case of a bad image, I attempted to run DISM to repair the image. No way it was going to run. I'm sorry I can't remember each error; but every time I dealt with an error, a new one reared its ugly head. I finally got the restore point to work. It still took several hours in the pre-boot environment, but it worked. Windows was unstable, so I saved all data and did a clean install. So, yes there is a question or four -is there a correct (foolproof) way to run DISM and then SFC from the installation media, targeting the OS? -will DISM and SFC initialize if the registry is corrupt? -if DISM and SFC can be run from the installation media, what are their limitations in terms of what they can fix? -can DISM and SFC deal with a damaged registry? In hindsight, perhaps I should have waited out the first restore. But it seemed pointless after 8 hours. Still... Thanks so much in advance for your help, Graham

:)

 

How to get damn DISM to work?

Thx guys, I'll compress this data into a blog post. For all the so called guides I've read, not a single one mentioned it has to be WIM file (some listed even ESD which clearly doesn't work) or that certain ISO images don't work with DISM.

After I've done DISM thingie, SFC also managed to repair stuff. Which is what I've needed here.

 

Can't get SFC and DISM to work anymore on Win10

Ok, can someone help me out because this crap is starting to piss me off. There was once a time when you could simply run SFC and DISM to check Windows files integrity and if there were any problems found with the local files, Windows repaired it automatically. The reason why I want to run this is because I'm getting stupendously huge amount of errors and warnings in Event Viewer, but I don't want to run refresh because it'll mess up tons of apps.

Commands I used:
sfc /scannow
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Fast forward few years and we now have glorious Windows 10. Trying to run the same tools, they find errors but stubbornly refuse to fix ANYTHING. What's the god damn point of it then?

Sfc finds issues but can't repair them and DISM constantly bitches how it can't find the source. All this used to work directly in Windows 7, but in Win 10, nothing. This was one of the best features to get OS back in good state and they go and ruin it. Because Microsoft!

I've checked this thread:
https://social.technet.microsoft.co...sfc-failed-to-repair?forum=win10itprohardware

Nothing worked. And they keep mentioning install.wim where my Windows image downloaded from Microsoft itself! only carries install.esd which I can't seem to use with anything.

I've also tried this tool:
CodePlex Archive

Which again wants .wim file and refuses to work with esd.

 

How to get damn DISM to work?

you need to run DISM first before running SFC
SFC query's the local component stores to make repairs
DISM is targeted for rebuilding the component stores and a offline image the 'live' section is still handled by SFC in some cases
except on windows 8.1 and up because they changed it
but only for certain files and only if x part of the store is corrupt
so yea pretty confusing eh