Wiindows doesn't open Windows tools

oli356

oli356

oli356

Soldato
Joined
10 Jan 2010
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Hi all,

Bit of a weird issue at the moment. My PC is working fine (Windows 7 desktop) however I'm having issues with build in Windows tools.

For example if I right click computer and click manage nothing happens - if I go into "System" and click "Device Manager" it will open for 1 second and then close immediately.

The same happens with event viewer, I open it - it either doesn't open or closes immediately.

I don't fancy re-installing over this issue but not having access to device manager is annoying..

Anyone got any ideas?
 
Solat said:
Might be worth checking if you have the Windows update detailed below installed. One of the behaviours can be similar to what you describe.

There is a later update that can be applied to fix or you can remove the problem update manually (see article for details).

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/12/microsoft-withdraws-bad-windows-7-update-that-broke-future-windows-7-updates/
Click to expand...
Can't even open up the file I downloaded..

chaparral said:
Have you tried doing a system restore to an earlier date ?

This normally fixes these kinds of problems..
Click to expand...
I open up system restore and it just closes down like everything else lol.


I think I'm just going to have to clean install soon, its annoying because generally most things on the PC are working as expected, its just Windows build in things that aren't. With the exception of Flash, I can't install the new version - it gets to like 70% and then says "Failed to launch application" in the installation box - not sure what that is all about.
 
Check if it works in safe mode. Then you can check the updates, etc.

If it does work try safe mode + networking and then you can try and download the file. I assume you have done a malware bytes / AV scan? Some of the newer malware, etc. try and stop you accessing items whereby you can potentially stop the malware from working.

I, personally, wouldn't want to waste hours trying to fix it when you can reinstall Windows in no time at all.



M.
 
It was hopeless in Safe mode, couldn't open up device mgr etc still.

Going for the reinstall, as you said it doesn't take long (just many many many updates) but with data on different drives its fairly painful.
 
try and check the windows system files

in CMD do the following

sfc /scannow

will check all windows files to see if any are corrupt
 
Bit of a silly question perhaps but are you sure you don't have a virus/malware on your system?
 
ED209 said:
try and check the windows system files

in CMD do the following

sfc /scannow

will check all windows files to see if any are corrupt
Click to expand...
Didn't think of that.

Sweey said:
Bit of a silly question perhaps but are you sure you don't have a virus/malware on your system?
Click to expand...
I went and did some scans and removed stuff a couple of days ago but obviously didn't help.

I'm up and running again now - just going through the millions of Windows updates and installing software again. A clean install is always nice :)
 
Yeah I used Malwarebytes, it did find several things but possibly irrelevant to the issue.

A few strange issue!
 
how many times did you run it?

when I use it I run a quick scan, reboot after and run another scan to make sure everything is removed.
 
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