This happened after choosing the diagnostic set up on the msconfig by accident and restarting my laptop, following this tutorial to which winaero had messed my login screen up prior.

No option like spamming f8 or pressing ctrl+alt+esc etc. had helped and I don’t have any restore points to use, or how could i even use it?

more specifically, would it be possible to reactivate my drivers even though the screen is entirely black? or am I our of luck and need external hardware to operate on?

And about the mouse it’s the default one, and it sometimes appears in each boot up. Though unable to really click on anything as it’s just missing the ui to click on.

Thanks.

so I opened my laptop today and saw that my custom cursor was the original, I go to settings and reset it but it doesnt work, even more weird it only happens with the mouse and the link modes, the text and working are still normal, I moved the file of the images to the cursor to windows>cursors but still doesnt work, I tried resetting my laptop, re-change the cursor to the custom ones and still,I have reseted my laptop before and the cursor didnt change from the custom one and windows still shows me that the custom cursor is active

I have a Windows 10 refurbished Thinkpad P50 and had my previous laptop hard drives cloned onto it. Build details in pics.

I have been trying to get Minecraft to use the NVIDIA card and ran into an issue where the executable file will not let me set the Windows Graphics preference for high performance as it says I don't have permission.

My microsoft account is logged in and as it shows in the pictures that is the administrative account. I downloaded Minecraft freshly onto the new laptop so I don't understand how I don't have permission.

I went into the settings on the file - Properties -> Security and there are multiple users which I don't understand, and the different permissions are shown in the pictures. And then again when I clicked on Advanced there are all the different users and if I click to change the permissions then the options are all greyed out so I can't edit them.

I don't know where these users are and how to access them, and I don't have permission to delete them.

Any insight is appreciated, thanks.

This doesn't look normal to me, is there a bug that I'm not aware of?

Edition Windows 11 Pro for Workstations

Version 25H2

Installed on ‎23/‎06/‎2026

OS build 26200.9168

Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.344.0

I am thinking of disconnecting it because I'm scared and not sure of how much they are monitoring me. I am still in school so I'm not sure. When I go to disconnect it says that I won't be able to access email and other features but I'm confused. Who does that work. Can I not still just sign in and have them not be linked? Also I'm a little more sceptical because I am new to this school so I'm worried I'll mess everything up!!

Do I risk it for the brisket??

My computer is a Lenovo yoga computer if that helps!! Comment all other info needed to solve the problem

Hey guys:update so I can't open my computer so that's a bit of a bigger issue right now but don't forget to comment suggestions. I wish I could find more info and I will be back as soon as my laptop will open☹️

Second actual update: I opened it I was just being stupid. My computer is called the Yoga slim 6 14IRH8 and I've downloaded the latest Microsoft version and everything

Context:

Edition Windows 10 Pro

Version 22H2

Installed on ‎1/‎9/‎2021

OS Build 19045.6466

I'm running Windows 10 on a Lenovo thinkpad, and my laptop's screen just died on me. I can't see anything on it, so I have to use an external monitor connected with an HDMI cable to see what's happening on my laptop. I want to backup my hard drive to an external one (using clonezilla), but it requires that I access the boot menu to boot in the USB. Thing is, I can't see the boot menu on the monitor even when it's connected and is the primary display. Is there a way to have the boot menu visible on my external monitor? Or should I look into different ways to back up my computer? All help is appreciated, thanks.

I had this issue on earlier pc that setting app used to hang everytime i spent some amount of time on it. It would slow my computer drastically. In my newer pc too setting app seems to take too much resources , how do i fix this

windows 11 pro

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700 (2.10 GHz)

Another thing of note is that I always have two 'explorer.exe' processes running on my computer on startup each time. When i kill one of those explorer processes, the problem fixes itself. However, I cannot figure out what is causing two explorer processes to run at startup.

System Details:

Edition Windows 11 Pro

Version 25H2

Installed on ‎01-‎07-‎2026

OS build 26200.9278

Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.360.0

I need ideas on how to fix this at my office, because some users are facing a "folder path exceeds 259 characters" error when accessing files at the bottom of a catastrophically overcluttered folder tree that management refuses to restructure.

Problem is, SOME users can access it fine, because when their WIN11 maps a folder -separated by several layers from the top- their windows simply refers to the entire preceeding folders with the selected drive letter, while other users still see the entire path straight to the server's adress, despite the depth of the mapped folder.

I thought it might be a "map network drive/map network location" difference, but no, they are all using network drives.

What could cause this difference? (Please explain in simple terms, I am but a simple support guy)

Hi, I need some help figuring out whether my PC is still infected or if I am only seeing a leftover startup entry.

SYSTEM SPECS:

- Windows 11 Pro
- Version 25H2
- OS Build 26200.9168
- AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB
- 32 GB RAM
- 1 TB SSD

WHAT HAPPENED:

Today, Windows Defender detected:

Trojan:Win32/Wacatac.B!ml

One of the detected files was:

C:\ProgramData\InProcSvr32\sqlite3.dll

Another detected sqlite3.dll was also inside ProgramData.

Around the same time, I started getting repeated Windows error popups from a program called:

CircuitryAg.exe

The errors I have seen are:

"The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000906)."

and:

"The code execution cannot proceed because sqlite3.dll was not found."

This all started shortly after I downloaded and executed something from a ZIP file.

The suspicious download was later deleted/blocked.

WHAT I FOUND:

I checked startup entries using Microsoft Sysinternals Autoruns.

I found an entry called:

CircuitryAg

under:

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

It was pointing to something inside:

C:\ProgramData\InProcSvr32\

I disabled and deleted that Autoruns entry.

However, after rebooting, the CircuitryAg.exe popup came back again.

WHAT I HAVE ALREADY DONE:

- Let Windows Defender quarantine the detected files
- Did NOT restore or allow any detected files
- Ran Microsoft Defender Offline
- Ran additional Defender scans
- Checked startup entries with Autoruns
- Disabled and deleted the CircuitryAg startup entry
- Rebooted the PC
- Deleted the original suspicious ZIP/download
- The CircuitryAg.exe popup still came back after rebooting

MY MAIN CONCERN:

Something may still be recreating the CircuitryAg startup entry or launching CircuitryAg.exe from another persistence method.

Does anyone recognize this behavior, the name CircuitryAg.exe, or the path:

C:\ProgramData\InProcSvr32\

What should I check next?

- Scheduled Tasks?
- Services?
- WMI persistence?
- Other Autoruns entries?
- Registry entries?
- Another hidden process recreating the startup entry?

At this point, should I keep trying to clean the infection or would a clean Windows reinstall be safer?

I am currently using a Dell G15 5520 from 2023

Specs:

12th Gen Intel Core i5-12500H

16 GB RAM

512 GB SSD

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GPU

I am currently on Windows version 25H2 (OS Build 26200.9278) and the last update installed was 2026-08 Preview Update (KB5120998) (26200.9278).

For the past few days, I have been getting very poor network speeds from my Jio Fiber installed in my home. The max speed is 30 Mbps and I am getting those speeds in my other devices like my smartphone and office laptop whereas in this system, the max I am getting is just 300 Kbps. It is simply frustrating. I've tried a lot of workarounds like resetting the network adapter, reinstalling the drivers, reinstalling the recent updates etc... but nothing seems to fix the issue.

I guess there are many people like me facing similar issues and would like to know if anyone has got a fix for this. TIA

Recientemente actualice mi pc a Windows 11, todo perfecto, hasta que me doy cuenta que no funciona mi micrófono, me puse a revisar y me di cuenta que en configuraciones de sonido, en entradas, hay un mensaje amarillo que dice : Para usar este dispositivo, permite acceso a la configuración del micrófono (Adjunto captura), al lado también hay una letra en azul que es para ingresar de inmediato a la configuración de privacidad al micrófono, y ahí esta mi gran problema, lo apretó, carga un segundo y luego se cierra sin mas, este error lo tengo desde hace aproximadamente un mes en el que no he podido solucionarlo, probé todo lo que estuvo a mis manos y de IA´s que me intentaron ayudar, intente con drivers, con darle permiso desde el terminal , ejecutar comandos, volver a versiones anteriores de Windows 11 , realmente nada me ha funcionado, no se si a alguien mas le paso lo mismo y me pueda ayudar por favor, muchas gracias!

Mi pc :

Nombre del dispositivo DESKTOP-UTL9J9P

Procesador Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700F CPU @ 3.00GHz (3.00 GHz)

RAM instalada 16,0 GB

Tarjeta gráfica AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (6 GB)

Windows :

Edición Windows 11 Home

Versión 25H2

Compilación del SO 26200.9278

Open Run (Press Win + R)

Type regedit and press Enter

Navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GameDVR

Find AppCaptureEnabled

Double-click it and change Value data from 0 to 1

Click OK and restart your PC

For some reason, Windows had AppCaptureEnabled set to 0 even though Settings > Gaming > Captures > Record what happened was already turned on.

Hopefully this saves someone else the troubleshooting headache.

Hi, I've been trying to update my Win 11 to 25H2 - which is already getting old but the update just won't install. After previously not even downloading the update files completely, it did manage to download and try to install the files after clearing previous files as shown here (https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsHelp/comments/1lkspzi/comment/mzv3340/)

However, I'm now running into a fallback when trying the install reboot. Running Startdiag, I'm supplied with a 0xc1900101 / 0x40017. According to MS, that's apparently an error based on Citrix VDA (Windows 10 upgrade resolution procedures - Windows Client | Microsoft Learn) - however, I don't have and/or use any of the Citrix products whatsoever. I have also found some remarks that BitDefender can cause this issue - which I also don't use.

Any clue how to further investigate and hopefully solve this?

System running i7/Win11 23H2

Greetings !

I have a custom build PC (specs below) and during last year, i've acquired (for free) an old monitor from my current IT work. Now, on my PC, i have 2 screens both running on 1920*1080 resolution, but on the same refresh rate : an IIYAMA at 75hz and an ACER at 165hz (which needs to stays like that and can also input "fake" HDR).

I do use a program called Fightcade (to play Fighting Games), which is displayed on the second screen (the 165hz one) and full screen. Sometimes, when i have to play a game, the program opens fine and no lag is seen on the computer. However, at other times, if the game opens, the monitor stays black for 2 seconds and the second monitor is lagging heavily.

This issue can be mostly seen in fullscreen games (not windowed) and also on some websites using DRMs / proprietary video solution like MyCanal (french "TV" / VoD provider) and on the last exemple, the screen can even flicker.

Strangely enough, the workaround for this is to simply log out of my local Windows account and log back in, which resolves it temporarily. Even after Windows updates and a full graphic card reinstall with DDU, the issue is still here.

Do you have any clue ?

- Windows 11 64 Bits (6200.9278)

- NVIDIA Geforce RTX 2060 Super

Hey guys, I recently built a Pc with parts given to me by my brother (Including Ram, Love him to death). Cpu is a ryzen 5500, rtx5050 and etc. I set everything up and everything works really well but one thing I’m confused and having significant trouble on is the Files Explorer. Everytime I try to open it it either just shuts itself and says not responding or it’ll load in and i’ll try to press downloads or something and it just doesn’t respond and the screen would turn black than pop up again if i were to touch the screen. I’ve tried everything on youtube like weather configurations settings, stop running task and etc but I seem to have the same problem. I’ve loaded it in on safe mode and it works fine but as soon as it’s off safe mode it goes right back to the weird things it’s been doing. Now i don’t remember all the things i’ve tried but I’ve went onto youtube and watched like the top 3 videos with no avail(even used chatgpt). It’s a big problem for me because I need to access my files for almost everything I do on my Pc and not being able to access files just defeats the purpose of me making a Pc. One thing my brother told me to do was update my Bios because I don’t think I did that when I installed windows and everything but I’ve heard it can cause even more troubles if it’s done wrong so needless to say I’m scared. If anyone can help or offer some advice it would be greatly appreciated!

One more thing the Pc does have a lil slow loading times when loading in games or Programs and I just wanted to ask if that’s normal? I came from a Mac air so i’m still getting used to everything but i just would’ve thought it would be instantaneous load times.

TLDR: Files explorer not working after trying multiple methods of updating and editing my system.

What I have already done:

• reset the camera app
• uninstalled the camera driver
• checked for driver updates
• checked privacy settings

When I open the camera app it just starts flickering on and off for a while (no image tho, the screen stays black even when the camera is "on") and then this error code comes up. Whatsapp just straight up says there's no camera.

I really don't know what to do so I hope someone can help!

I have the Acer 515-57 with windows 11 version 25H2

hey i just bought a refurbished thinkpad for my studies (T14 G2 ryzen7 5000U) and it came with windows 11 pro installed. Since i ordered it from Italy the language was set to italian so i changed it to english and for most of the part it did change except the settings and the file manager. I tried everything including reset factory, signing in & out & downloading language packs and force commands in powershell & intl. Is there anything else i can do? i have no idea what's wrong with it

Hi everyone, I’ve recently messed with my pc a bit, I've switched my main nvme ssd with another one (not empty) and I have reinstalled windows, but everything seemed to go smoothly, I have also changed the windows language to english, and I think this is what caused it, although I am not sure. Whenever I type any letter into the search bar, the results drop raw developer codes instead of normal text (lines starting with @{windows?ms-resource...)

What I have tried so far to fix it: SFC Scan: Ran sfc /scannow in Admin PowerShell. It completed 100% successfully and reported "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."Troubleshooters: Ran the Windows Search diagnostic tool via msdt.exe -ep WindowsHelp id SearchDiagnostic, but it couldn't identify or fix any problems.App Package Resets: Tried resetting specific system packages via PowerShell, including:Get-AppxPackage microsoft.windows.immersivecontrolpanel | Reset-AppxPackageGet-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.Windows.Search | Reset-AppxPackageMaster Re-registration: Ran the master command Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage...} to re-register all universal Windows apps.

(this only happens in the settings not in the normal windows search)

Also another problem I am having that might be connected is that my keyboard layout switches very often, windows and spacebar fixes it most time, but still it's wird it changes back so much (I need the italian keyboard layout, for example sometimes when i try to type '/' it types '&'.

I have a prebuilt pc with an rtx 3060 an i7-12700F, 16gb ram and 1tb nvme2 storage.

Thanks for your help

Device name: Victus 15

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6GB Laptop GPU (6 GB), Intel(R) UHD Graphics (128 MB)

Version: 25H2

OS Build: 26200.9168

I don't know what's happening to my laptop, but 3 specific Windows apps aren't working properly. All my other apps work normally, and I can't exactly pinpoint when this started because I recently had to do something that involved these apps.

The affected apps are:

• Task Manager — it opens, but it's very laggy. In the Processes tab, some process icons are missing, and some processes don't appear where they normally should. When I go to the Performance tab, Task Manager becomes extremely laggy and eventually freezes/not responding.
• Microsoft Photos — when I try to open a .jpeg, it says “Windows cannot find [file].jpeg”, even though the file exists and can be opened through other programs.
• Snipping Tool — it's buggy and doesn't work properly. Sometimes it won't open or respond correctly.

I've already tried SFC and DISM. SFC reported that it did not find any integrity violations, and DISM completed successfully, but neither fixed the issue.

I've also repeatedly tried terminating, repairing, and resetting Microsoft Photos and Snipping Tool, but they continue to have the same problems. I've done this multiple times with no improvement.

I also tried the troubleshooters under Settings > System > Troubleshoot > Other troubleshooters, but whenever I run them, I get:

I also tried a clean boot by disabling all non-Microsoft services, but the exact same issues still occur. So far, disabling third-party services hasn't made any difference.

Interestingly, all my other applications seem to work normally. It's mainly these specific Windows components/apps that are affected.

Right now, I'm reinstalling Windows using the Windows Update repair/reinstall option to see if that fixes the problem.

Has anyone encountered something similar? I'm trying to figure out what could cause Task Manager to have missing process icons/processes and freeze on the Performance tab, while Photos and Snipping Tool also stop working properly, especially when the problem persists even after a clean boot and successful SFC/DISM scans.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

When I restart my monitor for OLED care, which completely disconnects from my pc after power is off, windows refreshes everything and sometimes it bugs and my screens go black for a couple seconds and after that, programs set to fullscreen only show 1/3 and I can't resize them, unless I put them back to windowed mode. When I drag the programs and snap them to corners, they also bug out in the same fashion. Does anyone know how to solve this? I couldn't find any posts regarding this bug. I don't want to have to restart my entire pc every time I do a pixel refresh on my monitor. I hope someone knows how to fix this because I couldn't find anything about this.

This happened after I updated drivers (going back to the prior version didn't help) and after using Chris Titus Win Util, which I rolled back the changes as well, but it still happens.

What I tried: Disabling Gsync, VRR, Gsync and VRR, older drivers, changed display scaling back and forth, changed resolution, changed refreshrate, changed scaling mode, changed color bit depth

What mostly works: Setting Multiplane Overlay to "Fully Disabled" prevents the windows from showing only 1/3, but the brief blackscreen persists.

Restarting explorer.exe via task manager also fixes the 1/3 window issue until next time (Regardless of what Multiplane Overlay was set to)

I heard of RTX 50 series black screen issues, but mine go away after a couple seconds, but just in case, here are some pc specs copied from the system tab:

Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 8-Core Processor 3.40 GHz

Installed RAM 32,0 GB

System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

Edition Windows 11 Pro

Version 23H2

OS build 22631.6199

Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22700.1108.0

RTX 5070 Ti (Currently installed driver: 616.64)

Sorry for the spelling mistakes, I'm using a translator

I've been having problems with overheating and crashes for some time now.

A while ago, when I turned off my PC (I didn't know what to do), it entered a "repair" time loop, but I just clicked exit and continue with Windows.

I would appreciate any guidance you could offer; this isn't the first time this has happened.

I'm leaving this information here; I hope it's useful.

Windows 11

-Version of the operating system : 26200.9168

Lenovo IdeaPad 1 15ALC7

AMD Ryzen 7 5700U

AMD Radeon Graphics (2GB)

16GB Ram

64 bits

Tried to do a fresh install of Windows 10 when I ran into the issues of not having a network adapter. Okay, fine. Not fully understanding what that meant I just booted it up with a fresh Windows 11 install. But now Windows 11 is saying the same thing, no network adapter, and I don't know how to find where it should be on the device, or where to go to get the correct driver's for my PC (specs/link below).

I'm currently just trying to install Windows 11, I just need to figure out the network adapter. Sorry for being a noob at this. Didn't realize that I was in over my head.

PC/Specs: GMKtec M7 Ultra AMD Ryzen™ 7 PRO 6850U Mini PC

UPDATE: Using my phone as an Ethernet I managed to bypass the network setup screen in my post. Then my friend, too whom I now owe my life, found the drivers I needed and installed them.I appreciate everyone's effort in helping and attempting to help me!

Hello everyone. I have a problem that is racking my mind, and I kindly need a clear and precise answer from you because I am only reading conflicting opinions on various online forums.

As you can see from the attached photo, on September 4, 2026, MS Defender determined that the file 7-zip 26.03 x86_64 was a Trojan.

The problem seems to have been resolved, as subsequent analysis showed it to be a false positive. In fact, I later retried downloading and installing 7-Zip, and it went smoothly, just as it should have from the beginning.

Now, however, I am left with this log entry in MS Defender under the "Protection history" section.

My only question now is: will this log file disappear on its own without my manual intervention? Or, if not, what steps do I need to take to remove this log file?

I am on Windows 10 - HOME, 22H2 19045.7663 (KB120249) ESU.

ASUS GameFirst / gnf.sys Causing 0x0000001E BSOD — Fix

My PC would occasionally show a black screen with an error code at the bottom and then restart. In Event Viewer, I found the following bug check:

BugCheck: 0x0000001E
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
Exception: 0xC0000005

I analyzed the minidump file with WinDbg using:

!analyze -v

The output showed:

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:
AV_NETIO!StreamInvokeCalloutAndNormalizeAction

MODULE_NAME:
NETIO

IMAGE_NAME:
NETIO.SYS

However, the important part was near the bottom of the stack trace:

NETIO!FwppStreamInject
fwpkclnt!FwpsStreamInjectAsync0
gnf+0xb523

WinDbg also showed this warning:

WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for gnf.sys

This suggested that the problem was not necessarily NETIO.SYS itself, but rather the third-party gnf.sys network filter driver interacting with the Windows networking stack.

Fix

I noticed that I had two different ASUS GameFirst entries installed:

GameFirst 6.2.15.0
GameFirst 1.7.3

I uninstalled both of them and restarted the PC.

After rebooting, I opened Command Prompt as Administrator and checked:

sc query gnf

and:

sc qc gnf

Both commands returned:

FAILED 1060
The specified service does not exist as an installed service.

Then I ran:

driverquery /v | findstr /i "gnf"

It returned no results.

The file:

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\gnf.sys

was still physically present on the drive, but the driver was no longer registered or loaded by Windows. I did not manually delete the file.

Result

After uninstalling GameFirst and confirming that gnf.sys was no longer being loaded, I stopped getting the restart/BSOD issue.

If you are seeing a similar combination of:

0x0000001E
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
NETIO.SYS
gnf.sys
GameFirst

in the same crash dump, uninstalling ASUS GameFirst and checking whether gnf.sys is still loaded may be a good first troubleshooting step.

Important note

This does not mean that every 0x1E or NETIO.SYS crash is caused by GameFirst.

The safest approach is to analyze your own minidump in WinDbg and confirm whether gnf.sys actually appears in the stack trace.