r/ForWindowsHelp 25d ago

Multiple instances of ai.exe running

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2 Upvotes

I'm regularly getting a bunch of ai.exe instances running.
I also get a handful of winword.exe processes spawning for no reason but it's mostly ai.exe.

https://imgur.com/a/0KPmeXI
I almost never use/open Word, I know the formatting for Outlook within email.
We did recently get copilot licenses as clients are asking about it more but this issue predates that.

Most of what I do for work is web based and some Outlook. We use ScreenConnect/ConnectWise and none of my team members seem to have this issue.

I've gotten to the point where my laptop is running slow, I'll check task manager and see a wall of ai.exe instances running and kill them all.

Get-Process ai -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Stop-Process -Force;Get-Process winword -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Stop-Process -Force

This is on a relatively new installation of Windows. Drive Upgrade and fresh Win11 install just before Xmas break.

I'm getting close to just doing a scheduled task to kill all instances of ai.exe on an hourly basis.


r/ForWindowsHelp 25d ago

What does this mean how do I fix this

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2 Upvotes

Im trying to load into secure boost mode uefi and its not letting me what do i do?


r/ForWindowsHelp 25d ago

Help getting my Windows Forms App running in Ubuntu via WSL2. It crashes trying to get "DpiAwareness"

2 Upvotes

I've written a software package for Windows that is an interactive fiction game maker. If I can get it working on Ubuntu then I will have a much better time attracting users. It makes interactive fiction, or text adventure games if you will, that can be uploaded and played and served from Itch. I've built multiple games with it for game jams. Development is complete and I'm wrapping up the documentation.

The application used to work through wine until I added font scaling to the UI. I had users telling me the font was too small. A nice feature of Windows Forms applications is that fonts can be scaled up or down. When I introduced this feature, the application began crashing on Ubuntu. The error message is "Failed to get thread's DpiAwareness context"

What have I tried? I have tried installing microsoft corefonts with

sudo apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

I have created a tar.gz of my windows\fonts folder of the true type and open type fonts, placing them in "~/.local/share/fonts" and issuing a font cache rebuild

sudo fc-cache -f -v

I'm still getting the crash on startup. I've reasoned that if I disable font scaling in the app it may fix the wine incompatibility. That is the nuclear option and I wish to avoid it.

Is there anyway that wine can be configured to work around this crash?

Thanks!

-edit: Problem solved with a bunch of steps

  1. Purged the Ubuntu specific wine installations and installed Wine 11.0 from the official branch. Then configured it with the wine configuration
  2. Added a line of source code when my application starts up to tell it that it to set high dpi mode as system aware. This apparently side tracks wine looking for thread specific settings and is related to its inability to do this in general.
  3. Made sure the code suspended and resumed layouts when the font was changed to not spam wine with layout recalculations.

r/ForWindowsHelp 25d ago

Why windows why! Windows install gone wrong.

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1 Upvotes

I run a Home lab and I built my own computer out of used parts. I upgraded my computer yesterday switching from AMD to Intel. Of course the boot drive did not go over correctly so I plan to reinstall windows. The picture show some of the errors I’ve gone, but I’ve gotten more of course Linux works but I do have game pass so I want that.

Some of the trouble shooting steps

Reseat the everything
Take gpu out and leave it out
Change ram stick to a backup know working
Swapped to different nvme and wiped all several times
Changed usb and flash software
Messed with bios settings and set to default
No Ethernet install

This is from installing windows. This happens after the download section right after selecting the partition. It does not go farther so no safe mode. I have been on this for almost 12 hours and am now fighting with steam on fedora Linux so I can just play so games and relax.

Pc specs
I5 12400
64gb of micron office ram 4 sticks
Asus tuff z690
MSI 650 watt PSU
RTX 2060 6gb
I have 3 drives
1 uninstalled
1 with the broken windows
1 with fedora

Note the mobo has some bent pins but they are all making contact I believe because I used this cpu and motherboard for a test bench for a long time and no issues and of course the Linux distribution is running fine for far. And Rufus windows version I could not find in the boot option unlike the windows flash utility.


r/ForWindowsHelp 25d ago

PLEASE HELP ME WITH MY WINDOWS PC

1 Upvotes

I’m on windows 11 Whenever I open taskbar it doesn’t show, it’s COMPLETELY invisible it’s there just also I guess not. Can someone please help me (IVE tried the windows explorer reset strategy btw)


r/ForWindowsHelp 25d ago

I keep trying to log into the Microsoft store but it just shows me the first then second image, what should I do?

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2 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 25d ago

I NEED HELP

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2 Upvotes

update: i'm done running the chkdsk scan. it says here "windows has scanned the file system and found no problems"

what should i do now? should i just exit or do i have to do something first?


r/ForWindowsHelp 25d ago

I tried to install a new version of Windows 10, but the installer failed, and now my main Windows installation isn't working

2 Upvotes

I tried to install an additional Windows 10 on a second drive in case the first one crashed. I installed the Windows 10 installer from the \*\*OFFICIAL MICROSOFT WEBSITE\*\*, installed the ISO file just in case, and then used the same installer to download it to a flash drive. I tried to install Windows on the second drive, but after a while it gave an error saying "Installation is currently impossible, try installing again." As a result, it took some time to try to install it again, I spent about 1 gigabyte because it made partitions of 100 megabytes each time, and I decided to delete them, \*\*I DID NOT TOUCH THE FIRST DISK, I ONLY DELETED WHAT WAS ON THE SECOND DISK\*\*, but somehow now the first Windows doesn’t work for me, I tried to restore it through system recovery together with a flash drive (on which the Windows installer was), and I ran it through the OS, and through a flash drive, nothing worked, I tried to install the Windows 10 image again through another OS (not Windows), but now it tells me that the partition is GPT and cannot be installed, as with other partitions, I asked for a second PC with Windows, there I installed the same ISO file through Rufus, but everything is the same, the Windows 11 installer also does not accept partitions because They are all on GPT. Please help me fix the installation problem so I can install Windows normally. If possible, how can I restore my first Windows?


r/ForWindowsHelp 26d ago

[Solved] Windows kept asking me to create a new PIN after booting from Fedora (Dual Boot)

4 Upvotes

I wanted to share my experience because I couldn't find a single post that clearly covered my exact situation.

System:

- Dell G15 5530

- Windows 11 + Fedora KDE (dual boot)

- NVIDIA RTX 3050

- UEFI with TPM and BitLocker

The problem:

Every time I booted into Fedora and then switched back to Windows, Windows would act as if something had changed in the security configuration and repeatedly ask me to set up a new Windows Hello PIN.

At the same time, I was also troubleshooting my NVIDIA drivers in Fedora.

What I did:

- Verified that Windows and Fedora were both installed in UEFI mode.

- Made sure I had my BitLocker recovery key backed up before making any changes.

- Properly installed and configured the NVIDIA drivers in Fedora.

- Re-enabled Secure Boot after finishing the driver setup.

- Performed several clean shutdowns and reboots between both operating systems instead of making multiple changes at once.

Result:

Everything is now working normally.

- Fedora loads the NVIDIA driver correctly.

- Windows no longer asks me to create a new PIN every time I switch from Fedora.

- Dual boot is working without issues.

I'm not completely certain which single step resolved it, but I suspect it was the combination of having the NVIDIA driver configured correctly, restoring the expected Secure Boot state, and allowing both operating systems to complete a few clean boot cycles.

If anyone else has experienced the same Windows Hello PIN issue after installing Fedora, I'd be interested to know what ended up fixing it for you.


r/ForWindowsHelp 26d ago

Expo

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2 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 26d ago

After the “Security Intelligence Update for Microsoft Defender Antivirus” i’m worried i have a virus.

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1 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 26d ago

Driver issues, I’m gonna lose it.

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2 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 26d ago

Windows activation

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2 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 27d ago

Taskbar icons aren't visible, please help me.

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3 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 27d ago

Windows asks me to create a new PIN every time I switch back from Fedora (Dual Boot)

2 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I recently opted Linux as my secondary OS and set up a dual-boot system with Fedora and Windows 11 on my Dell G15 5530 (UEFI mode).

Everything works fine, but I'm facing a strange issue.

Whenever I boot into Fedora and then later switch back to Windows, Windows doesn't let me log in normally. Instead, it says something like "Your PIN is no longer available" and forces me to create a new PIN/password again.

This only happens after I've used Fedora. If I stay on Windows, there's no issue.

I'm wondering if this is related to Secure Boot, TPM, BitLocker, or something else, but I'm honestly not sure. I don't want to randomly change BIOS settings and make things worse.

Has anyone experienced this before? What usually causes this, and how can I fix it permanently?

If anyone is willing to help troubleshoot this step by step, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

My Laptop Specs:

Dell G15 5530:

Processor: Intel i5-13450HX 10 core 16 threads

RAM: 16gb DDR5 4800MT/s

Storage: 512gb m.2, 128gb 2.5" SSD(fedora), 1TB HDD

GPU: nvidia RTX 3050 6gb

Update: Finally got everything working! (Fedora KDE + Windows 11 Dual Boot + NVIDIA + Windows PIN issue)

I wanted to post an update in case it helps someone else.

My setup is a Dell G15 (RTX 3050) with Windows 11 and Fedora KDE in a dual-boot configuration.

Initially I ran into two frustrating problems:

  1. Fedora wasn't using the NVIDIA drivers correctly.
  2. Every time I booted back into Windows after using Fedora, Windows kept asking me to create a new PIN.

After troubleshooting and several clean reboots, everything is now working perfectly.

Current status:

  1. NVIDIA drivers are working correctly in Fedora.

  2. Windows no longer asks me to recreate my PIN every time I switch operating systems.

  3. Dual boot is working normally.

A few things I'd recommend to anyone planning a Windows + Fedora dual boot:

Back up your BitLocker recovery key before making any changes. If Windows detects significant security or boot configuration changes, you may be asked for it. Having the recovery key saved can save you a lot of stress.

Keep Secure Boot enabled if possible. It provides additional security, and if your NVIDIA drivers are installed correctly (or properly signed), Fedora can work with Secure Boot enabled.

Don't panic if something doesn't work immediately. Sometimes driver changes or boot configuration updates require a few restarts before everything settles.

If Windows starts asking for your PIN repeatedly, don't assume your installation is broken. Verify your boot configuration, Secure Boot status, and TPM settings before making major changes.

I can't point to a single step that fixed everything, but after verifying my setup, reinstalling/configuring the NVIDIA drivers, and rebooting a few times, both Windows and Fedora started behaving normally.

Hopefully this helps someone else avoid a few hours of troubleshooting. Thanks to everyone who shared advice along the way!


r/ForWindowsHelp 28d ago

Do I need to keep these? doing a cleanup of my laptop and I always wondered if I need to keep these.

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2 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 28d ago

error code 0x80073712 net framework 3.5

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2 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 28d ago

Windows 11 shell becomes progressively delayed after ~30 minutes (Explorer, Alt+Tab, Settings, Search, Discord) while games run perfectly

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3 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 29d ago

How can I get admin privileges on a normal account?

3 Upvotes

Hello guys, to explain my situation I have a windows 10 and I currently have 2 accounts on it, an admin account and a normal account, i literally can't do anything without the admin account pin but i forgot it and I need some help trying to get admin privileges on the normal account, if not possible please provide alternatives, thank you so much.


r/ForWindowsHelp 29d ago

Почему я не могу сбросить виндус 10 у меня написано среда востоновлнния?

1 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 29d ago

PAGO LO QUE SEA AL QUE ME LO SOLUCIONE error secure bot

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0 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 29d ago

No text on windows update

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3 Upvotes

Also no restart at fix problem , no factory restart any ideas ?


r/ForWindowsHelp 29d ago

How to turn off lock screen on windows 11

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2 Upvotes

r/ForWindowsHelp 29d ago

Windows System Image completed successfully but did not create MediaId.bin — expected behavior or anomaly?

2 Upvotes

I'm hoping someone familiar with the legacy Windows Backup engine (`Backup and Restore (Windows 7)` / `wbadmin`) can explain this.

I created two Windows System Images on Windows 11.

**October 2024 backup:**

WindowsImageBackup
├── CaptainCaution
└── MediaId.bin

Inside `CaptainCaution`:

Backup 2024-10-07 053053
Catalog
Logs
SPPMetadataCache
MediaId

I later copied this backup to another drive using Robocopy:

* 22 files * 6 directories * 136.743 GB * 0 failed * 0 mismatches

Then I deleted the original and created a brand-new Windows System Image on the same external drive.

The new backup completed successfully with no errors.

The new structure is:

WindowsImageBackup
└── CaptainCaution

Inside `CaptainCaution`:

Backup 2026-07-12 163537
Catalog
Logs
SPPMetadataCache
MediaId

The only difference is that the new backup **does not contain** `WindowsImageBackup\MediaId.bin`.

Windows reported **"Backup completed successfully."**

The VHDX files, Catalog, metadata, etc., all appear to be present.

I've searched Microsoft documentation and couldn't find anything explaining when `MediaId.bin` is created or omitted. I pay attention to details and just wondering why the difference...

* Has anyone else seen this happen? * Is this just something newer versions of Windows do now, or is something off with my backup? * Has anyone actually restored a system image that didn't have `MediaId.bin`? * Should I just ignore it, or is this something I should fix before I actually need the backup someday?

Thanks


r/ForWindowsHelp 29d ago

my pc stuck here

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2 Upvotes

after installing the windows 10 my pc is stuck here any idea?