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.
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.
strangely Network Troubleshooter always helped me when I was out of ideas why the network just… stopped working
tho never said the problem, things 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?
yeah, but if the troubleshooter does that it’s somehow works, if I do each step manually what the troubleshooter does, it never works.
there’s some black magic involved…
like the way how unresponding apps suddenly come back to life if I open Task Manager…
Only Windows can unfuck that which it fucked up on its own.
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/
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’ve only ever had it fix a sound issue, as well. Bad driver?
This was nearly 20 years ago, i really do not recall what the issue was, order of if I ever fixed it. I may have replaced the card or something.
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.
Never. I’ve been using since Windows 3.11
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows xp
Vista
Windows 8
Windows 10
Not once has it solved a problem
There was a troubleshooter in 3.11?
No. That was meant as a statement of I’ve been using windows for that long and since the beginning of Windows (and when ever they introduced the trouble shooter) it’s never worked
Everybody always forgets about Windows 1.0 through 3.1 .
I had a 286 machine that came with windows 2. It felt more like a tech demo than something you’d actually use.
Also there was no auto fixer that I can remember.
Yeah, it was a mess until 3.0, and the networking support in 3.11 is what led to widespread adoption.
Coincidentally, 3.11 is when I dropped windows for Linux,
Then use it more, because it does work.
~Sinisterly, someone who has been using Windows as long as you but also has used Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows 7 and Windows 11.
? Use it more because it “works” even though it’s never worked for me.
That’s your logic?
So you are saying the system uses a powerful AI that learns and adapts? That way over time it will start fixing the issues?
Look at the other comments to see how many people have had no luck with the system. Maybe it works for you but in general it fails.
I once had the troubleshooter fix a networking issue I had. I’m still shook.
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 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)
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)
No, in 15 years in IT I have never once had any sort of Windows auto repair actually do anything. Otherwise it would’ve already done it behind the scenes.
Removed by mod
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.
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.
Removed by mod
It fixed an issue for me once back on like Windows Vista I think.
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?
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.
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
Once. It was a long time ago, and I don’t remember exactly what was wrong, but it did fix it. Since then I’ve run it probably 10 more times and it’s never worked again. Even when the thing that’s wrong is something that it should be able to fix, like I formatted the EFI partition, and it just needs to add its own boot loader again.
Ha! That’s one of the problems that it has failed to fix for me. I converted several machines from netboot to local boot; the EFI partition was there, but the startup repair couldn’t even handle copying the bootloader files onto it. (Or even diagnose that they were missing.)
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.
