Yeah, basically that. I’m back at work in Windows land on a Monday morning, and pondering what sadist at Microsoft included these features. It’s not hyperbole to say that the startup repair, and the troubleshooters in settings, have never fixed an issue I’ve encountered with Windows. Not even once. Is this typical?
ETA: I’ve learned from reading the responses that the Windows troubleshooters primarily look for missing or broken drivers, and sometimes fix things just by restarting a service, so they’re useful if you have troublesome hardware.
strangely Network Troubleshooter always helped me when I was out of ideas why the network just… stopped working
tho never said the problem, it just got fixed in the meantime while it analyzed n shit and then it reported no issues :P
That one usually is successful by disabling your network adapter, then re-enabling it. Basically…
Have you tried turning it off then back again?
I believe the troubleshooter also does a WINSock reset as well. I’m not sure, though. I know it definitely disables/enables the adapter.
https://www.howtogeek.com/785351/how-and-why-to-perform-a-netsh-winsock-reset-on-windows/
Yeah, on Win98 (or maybe Win2k), it would always find this obscure sound card driver for this crappy sound card in this Packard Bell I had. Amazing.
But not once ever for any other issue before or since.
The troubleshooter was legitimately good in Win2k. And has sucked since they unified kernels.
I once had the troubleshooter fix a networking issue I had. I’m still shook.
Yes it has.
I used to have a sound issue and the repair wizard would always fix it. It would happen again, I think after the next reboot.
I feel like I’ve seen a unicorn!
Sounds a bit like the repair tool broke the sound everytime itself you shut down to polish its image
Possible! I have also used it when I disabled my network and it was quicker to run the repair tool than it was too try and remember what exactly i had done to disable it.
Well, it helped me boot into USB drives so I can remove windows and swap it with Linux on some annoying computers that would boot windows very fast…
The Windows network troubleshooter is black magic from the depths of hell itself and is very opinionated and selective in choosing which issues to fix and whether you’ll need to bargain your soul to recieve said fix. I have red hair and find it doesn’t bother bartering with me, but your mileage may vary.
This is the truest comment on the post.
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It fixed an issue for me once back on like Windows Vista I think.
Definitely, it is the first thing I always run. It is really great at checking all the “obvious” user errors like having no internet connection or having a full disk drive.
I can run it and go do something else.
It is also great to explain how to use it over a phone to people who aren’t tech savvy.
Afterwards it gives you extra information about the issue if you click on details.
It is also great to explain how to use it over a phone to people who aren’t tech savvy.
Ive never seen it solve anything and Ive certainly never heard of someone non-savvy being successful with it, even when Ive prompted them to do it (I have them do it because it gives them a few min to calm down)
Afterwards it gives you extra information about the issue if you click on details.
Can you give one example of it giving correct and relevant information there? I have never seen it once.
I have them do it because it gives them a few min to calm down
This is downright genius
The sound troubleshooter will fix the issue sometimes if it is a driver or weird input issue.
No, however I think there might be a bit of a trap here that skews perception for some. Namely, that the automatic tools are intended to fix problems simple enough that more technical minded people would attempt the solutions it uses themselves before resorting to a troubleshooter.
Yes – frequently, but this is a bad thing.
The issue was that their automatic updater makes my computer unable to boot, due to some compatibility problem with an update. Which it keeps trying to apply. Then every time it fails, startup repair or some troubleshooter rolls back the update and it works again for a while.
Since I cannot turn off updates, it’s stuck in this loop forever. However, I can turn off my computer via the power button (sending shutdown signal, not hard power off), and this avoids applying the update most of the time.
This is an older computer that is only used for games, and a slicer for my 3D printer. I’ve decided to leave it in this state – at this point it’s more a piece of performance art than a reliable computer. I moved my business and my clients away from MS a few years back.
This cost me a lot of easy money though – there’s no maintenance work for me to do and I’ve had to move on to more productive things.
Why didn’t you just disable updates?
Haven’t found an option that does this with any degree of permanence. Always re-enables updates after a short time without prompting. Then reminds me every 3 days to set up a MS account.
Not very concerned – it’s not worth my time to fix. I don’t have free time.
You can disable the updates service and/or edit the registry
This guy thinks you can do what you want with Windows.
Disabling updates is such a ridiculous thing because sometimes it works, and sometimes Windows just ignores you.
I’ve literally had two exact model laptops running as local render servers, fully updated, then disabled updates/reboots on both, around a month later one updated and rebooted dumping my workload and corrupting my database. Disabling anything on Windows doesn’t always work, it does what it wants.
I’ve occasionally had success restoring a network connection with troubleshooter. Generally if you switch between Ethernet and WiFi, Windows will get confused, but the troubleshooter will turn the network devices off and on which gets it back. I find it’s easier to turn off the device I’m not using, but if that’s too complicated for someone usually “run the troubleshooter” works.
My WiFi just is unable to connect sometimes and the troubleshooter fails. Useless.
The network troubleshooter often works alright. Just never run it if you have setup a bunch of virtual switches in hyper V or something, because it will delete them or otherwise fuck them up and it’s pretty annoying to restore (you have to remove them via device Manager and stuff)
Troubleshooter maybe once, but otherwise no.
Startup repair yes though, after doing the right set of SFC scan and updating Windows cache whatever thing
On windows 8 the network troubleshooter would restart my wifi driver and that usually fixed the problem. Aside from that nah
This for me, the only success I’ve had is with network issues.
Yes. Once a Win10 troubleshooter solved a backwards-compatibility problem with an old XP game.
the troubleshooter is great! – “problem not found” – it’s exactly the same problem you couldn’t find yesterday, or the day before, or the day before …
(I think I just keep clicking it out of a sense of ritual – it fixed itself once, so I keep doing the same unrelated set of steps in the same order in some forlorn hope of appeasing the Windows daemons)
