Windows 10: Windows 10 settings, services, cortana search broken.

I think the Windows version is 1803. There's a lot of strange stuff going on with my PC out of the blue. I can open settings but cannot click on anything,, same with services. Cortana gets stuck on search also. Windows update keeps turning itself off.


I have other problems which i feel must be related since they started happening at the same time, but they are very strange. Specifically Rocket League (video game) won't launch anymore, but other video games work fine. A specific brand of music software called East West PLAY hangs for many minutes before loading even though all of my other music software from other brands works fine. Rocket League and EW PLAY are my most used programs lately. I uninstalled and re-downloaded them both but ended with the exact same problems.


A very strange thing is the Event Viewer shows ESENT errors every 10 seconds (literally on the dot). I don't know what any of this means or how it is related. chkdsk said there was a problem with C: so i did chkdsk /f and now it's all good. I also did a memory diagnostic thing and that also said it was fine. I tried uninstalling whatever the latest windows update was but it wouldn't let me (has worked in the past). All of the suggestions i'm reading about involve opening settings so i'm stumped. Apparently i don't have a recovery point either.


If you try to help me you will have to be very specific on what magic buttons to click and where to find them. I'm computer illiterate.

:)

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

As you may already know, Windows 10 (as well as Windows 8) allow you to log in with a valid Microsoft account, instead of creating a local account that only works on your machine. However, you may prefer to keep a local account for privacy reasons. If you do, though, some Windows 10 features—like Cortana—may not work. Despite the default behavior, the Windows 10 Store is not one of them. You can still log in to your Microsoft account for just the Store without switching to a full Microsoft account. The process, however, is not terribly obvious. To do so, follow these steps:

• Launch the Store from your Start menu.
• Click the user icon next to the search box.
• Click “Sign-in” from the menu that appears.
• Choose “Microsoft account” and log in like normal.
• When the “Make it yours” box appears do not enter your password. Instead, click “Sign in to just this app instead.”

from Lifehacker

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Privacy tweaks...

• Turn Cortana Off. Bring up the Start menu and start typing. Click on the notebook icon in the left sidebar and choose Settings. From there, you can turn off Cortana.
• Search online and include web results. When you turn off Cortana, you’ll see this option appear. You can turn it off if you’d rather not get web search suggestions from the Start menu, which log your typing and send it back to Microsoft so you can get live-updating predictions, just like you do on Google.com or in Chrome and Firefox.
• Getting to Know You. In Settings > Privacy > Speech, Inking, & Typing, you’ll find a feature called “Getting to Know You”. This is probably the most sweeping privacy setting on the system, and even after turning off Cortana, you’ll have to disable this setting. Just click the “Stop Getting to Know Me” button to turn it off.
• Cloud Info. Turning off Getting to Know You removes info from your device, but you’ll have to remove it from the cloud separately. In that same window, click “Go to Bing and manage personal info for all your devices” to clear the Getting to Know You Data from your Microsoft account.

• If you head to Settings > Privacy > Feedback & Diagnostics, you’ll see two settings:

• Feedback frequency: Windows will occasionally ask you for feedback so you can send Microsoft your thoughts on Windows 10. If you’d rather it not bug you with such things, you can change it to Never.
• Diagnostic and usage data: This feature can send a lot of data back to Microsoft, including how often you use certain apps, which apps you use most often, and memory snapshots (which can inadvertently include parts of a document you’re working on if something crashes). You can change this to Full, Enhanced, or Basic. You can read more about what each of these to here.

Microsoft doesn’t let you turn off diagnostics completely, except on Enterprise versions of Windows. The Basic setting, they say, is data that is “vital to the operation of Windows”, including Windows Update and malicious software protection.


some may be duplicated. I found this info on Lifehacker, if anyone wants the full article.

 

Cortana and settings options disappeared


Have you been able to use Cortana before and have you experienced any problems with it then?
What about trying a system restore?

Also this could be of some use to you: Cortana Search Box Windows 10
I would particually suggest step 3 and see if the problem still remains with a new user account.