Troubleshoot Windows

Author: shantanu

Fix: Diagnostics Policy Service not running in Windows 8 | 8.1
This post helps you solve an issue with your windows 8 | 8.1 PC, where, The diagnostics policy service is not running. There could be a few causes of this problem. Some of them include a device driver issue that’s stopping the service due to a conflict. A malware or other issues relating to a system service corruption.

Here are a few steps that can help you fix this issue:

Method 1
- Press Windows logo key + X (to open the power command menu )
- Now, Click on Device Manager
- Here, locate Network Adapters, Right Click your network adapter
- Click on Update Driver software
- Alternatively, you can download and install the updated version of your network adapter’s driver software from your motherboard / computer manufacturer’s support website
- Restart your computer & check if the problem is solved.
Method 2 : Starting the Diagnostics policy service
- Press Windows logo key + R
- Type services.msc
- Locate the service Diagnostic Policy Service
- Right Click the service
- Click on Properties
- Now, here, make sure that the service is started,
- if not, start it
- & set the startup type to Automatic
- Apply , OK
- Check if the problem is solved.
Method 3: Using the Windows Network Diagnostic
- Right Click the network icon on taskbar
- Click on Troubleshoot Problems
- After the process completes,
- Click on Try these repairs as an administrator
- Check if this solves your problem.
Method 4 : Command line
- Press Windows logo key + X ( power menu )
- Click on Command Prompt (Admin )
- Now, type
- net localgroup Administrators /add networkservice
- Press Enter
- Now, Again type,
- net localgroup Administrators /add localservice
- Press Enter
- You will get a message saying “ Command completed successfully”
- Exit the command prompt & check if this solves your problem
Hope this helps, You can drop in a line in the comments section below, if you have any suggestions or feedback.
May 1, 2015
Fix : Windows 8.1 error 0X800F081F
This post will help you fix an issue with your Windows 8.1 based PC, where you get an error 0x800F081F. This error can occur due to corrupted Windows update files or certain hardware failures or device driver issues. Follow the methods below to solve this issue:

Method 1 : Update Device Drivers
- Go to Windows Update,
- Go to the start screen
- Type Windows Update
- Select from Optional Updates section
- Check all the Hardware device driver updates available
- Alternatively,
- you can visit your Motherboard / Computer Manufacturer’s website to download and install the latest drivers.
Method 2 : System Update & Readiness tool
- CheckSUR tool, can be used to check & replace the damaged & missing files in Windows Update
- Press Windows logo key + X to open the power menu
- Click on Command Prompt (Admin)
- Now,
- Type dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth
- When the process completes,
- type
- dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
- After the operation completes, Restart your computer
- Run Windows update to check if the problem has been solved.
April 30, 2015
How to remove | rollback Windows 10 preview
After reading this post you will be able to remove or roll back the Windows 10 Technical preview installed on your PC. I have been testing the Windows 10 TP from early stages & I always install any beta ( preview ) OS as multi boot & another copy as a Virtual Machine. Now, removing a VM is a fairly easy task, but uninstalling a dedicated OS is not to easy. To solve this issue, Microsoft came up with an easier solution that enables the testers / users, to uninstall or rollback the Technical Preview / Insider preview. They now have a dedicated entry on the boot selection menu that lets you remove or rollback the preview without much hassle. So, follow the steps below to rollback or uninstall the Insider preview.
- Startup your Computer
- On the boot selection menu
- Select Windows Rollback.
- Keep the system running & your Technical preview will be removed.
Hope this helps.
April 28, 2015
Windows 10 TP Build 10061 | Info

Recently, the Windows 10 build 10061 was released to the “Fast ring” testers. This build is was pushed via the windows update process. Here is what’s new in this build.

Improvements to Action Center, Taskbar & Start

With this build, the start menu can be resized and has a transparency effect. The power button has now been moved to the bottom left of the start menu making it better accessible. The start menu now features an automatic color enhancement technique, which is pulled off from the existing desktop background.

With start menu, the taskbar & action also gets the transparency effect & we can now change the color scheme across these by using the settings app & navigating to the personalization settings. This build now features the all new “ Black system” theme across Taskbar, Start menu & Action center. With that, the task view has received several updates, the icons are more refined, the thumbnails and buttons seem to be more polished. The Switch app ( ALT+Tab) and snap assist are also updated with this interface optimization.

New Mail & calendar Apps

The new email app features this new & amazing email authoring experience, which makes you use almost all the features and experience of Microsoft Word, that includes, inserting tables, adding pictures and bullets & giving different colors to your text. The UI functionality on the new email & calendar apps features the three pain UI, which is very familiar to Windows users & lets you toggles very efficiently within Mail & calendar apps. The mail app supports customizable swipe gestures which are very handy. Office 365 is supported out of the box & these apps also support exchange, outlook & other IMAP & POP accounts.

Thank you for reading this post, more feature reviews coming soon.

April 27, 2015
EMCO MSI Package Builder – Hassle Free Way to Silently Deploy Applications

EMCO MSI Package Builder – Hassle Free Way to Silently Deploy Applications

What you would do if you’ve to visit each system residing on the network just to install one or two applications?? Obviously, you can do this if the number of systems were fewer or there are merely any need for installing applications. However, this seems quite challenging and full of trouble if you’ve repeat this task over and over again. Need of a tool has been arisen that could saves you from such repetitive activities and automates the whole task of deploying applications on networked computers.

I’ve recently came across a tool entitled EMCO MSI Package builder that offers flawless operation of remotely deploying applications as much as you want. It’ll take your traditional setup files (EXE format) into account and make it ready to install on computers connected over network without needing any interaction from end user part.

What is MSI Packages?

MSI is a windows installer file format that is used to package almost any type of setup files to perform installation on the client computer. MSI files can be used for remote application deployment, performing storage related tasks and removing bogus or any other desired programs from the targeted computer. This will save your ample amount of time by collecting multiple setup files into one single package and perform installation one by one.

Need of MSI Package Builder Tool

MSI Builder tool is designed to help support professionals and network administrators in managing applications on networked computers like install, repair, update or remove programs. It offers an easy to build operation of creating MSI packages and easily distributing it over network.

You can find more details on converting exe to MSI over here:

http://emcosoftware.com/msi-package-builder/convert-exe-to-msi

Anyone can choose to create and distribute MSI packages using changes tracking technology or manually by using visual editor, the said two methods are inbuilt into the application and can be used as per requirement.

The most important and worth noticing features is its capability to perform silent installations on network computers. Silent signifies that the created MSI packages will be distributed on computers using Microsoft Group policy and doesn’t requires any participation on the end user side.

What all it takes?

From the above figure, you can have a clear idea about everything you’ll need to perform silent remote installation of any applications. Just define the project name, choose source location of targeted setup file you are going to deploy, system platform and few more. After which, tool will begin creating MSI package for that particular application and let you deploy it freely on any system. Below mentioned link contains the detailed step on how you can easily create MSI packages along with its distribution:

http://emcosoftware.com/msi-package-builder/create-msi-package

Final Thoughts

EMCO MSI Package Builder is a powerful installation authoring tool that provides unique capability and functionality to support engineers and helps in greatly reducing overall effort and time in distributing applications over networked computer. Basically, this application is available in two versions: Professional and Enterprise. The company also offers 30 days free evaluation period for this application to test it yourself and decide.

Have you ever tried any such tools or experienced difficulties in remote application deployment, feel free to share it with us!!

April 26, 2014
Fix : Cannot change Internet Explorer Start page | Home Page
This post is intended to help those users, who are unable to :
- Change their IE home page | Start Page
- Change the Search page
- Change the Default Search Provider
In many situations today, add-on programs get installed in our computers. This could be due to installing software through some Internet agency’s download manager or a free software that had some add-on program clipped on to it & that installed without your permission. Recently, I faced a similar issue & I tried everything to reset my Internet Explorer’s start page or homepage. Nothing seemed to work, I even uninstalled & reinstalled the Internet Explorer, cleared the Temp folder & all offline files etc. etc.

Below is the procedure that worked for me to Fix : Cannot change Internet Explorer Homepage | Start Page :

Method 1 :
- On your taskbar or Desktop
- Right Click the Internet Explorer Icon
- Go to it’s properties
- Now,
- In the Target Window, check the whole target link
- Check if there is a link at the end of the line ( refer the screenshot below )
- Remove the link from the end
- & make sure that you put double quotes at the end i.e. right after iexplore.exe
- Click Apply
- Click Ok
- Now,
- Open Internet Explorer
- Press ALT + X
- Click on Internet Options
- Click on Advanced
- Click on Reset
- After the resetting process completes
- Restart your computer
- Check to see if this solved your problem
If you still cannot reset Homepage , try the method below

Method 2
- Open Regedit ( Windows Logo key + R & type regedit in the box & press Enter )
- Press yes
- Now, the first thing you should do is to backup your Registry
- Right Click on Computer
- Click on Export
- Give a file name & Click on Save
- Now,
- Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
- Refer the screenshot above & Change the Default_Page_URL , Default_Search_URL, Search Page & Start Page to about:blank or anything you like
- Now, repeat the above said steps with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN
- Now,
- Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScope
- Here, Delete the entry any secondary entry, other than Bing or Google ( refer Screenshot )
- Repeat the steps with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes
- Now,
- Locate : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Clients\StartMenuInternet\IExplore.exe\shell\open\command
- here, double click Default
- Either Remove any link that appears after iexplore.exe or add the name of your favourite website ( Refer Screenshot above )
- Click ok
- Exit Regedit
- Restart your computer
- Check if your problem is solved
Hope this helps you. If not , or if you have any query, use the comment section to notify me & i will try to help.
February 5, 2014
Fix : Sleep mode not working after upgrading to Windows 8.1
After reading this post you will be able to fix an issue with your Windows PC, where, on upgrading to Windows 8.1 from Windows 8, you are unable to put your computer to a sleep power state. Windows 8.1 has been a major update for Windows 8 and has brought a lot of features to the initial Windows 8 release. But, some times, due to Reset Power settings
- Press the Windows logo key + X
- Click on Command Prompt ( Admin )
- Now,
- Type restore all your power schemes to the default Windows State.
- Restart your PC
- Now,
- Go to Power Options (Type Power options on the start screen & Click on the search result )
- Make sure the Balanced Power plan is activated
If this does not Turn on Hybrid Sleep & Selective suspend
- Go to Power Options ( Control Panel )
- Click on Change Plan Settings ( Of your Current Power Plan )
- Now,
- Click on Change advanced power settings
- Click on Change settings that are currently unavailable
- Now,
- Make sure Allow Hybrid Sleep is set to ON
- Also, make sure USB Selective Suspend is also set to ON
Check if your Problem is solved. If you still Upgrading to Windows 8.1, make sure that you update your:
- USB Drivers
- Display Drivers
- Chipset Drivers
- SATA / AHCI drivers
- To do so, Either run Windows update
- or
- Go to your Computer / Motherboard / Display ( Graphics ) Manufacturer’s support website & download / Install the proper drivers
- Now, for the settings :
- Go to the Device Manager ( Windows Logo key + X – > Device Manager )
- Expand Network Adapters
- Right Click the network adapter listed there ( If there are more than one, repeat this step for all of them )
- Go to Properties
- Go to Power Management
- Uncheck the Checkbox that says “ Allow this device to wake the computer “
- and
- Make sure that the checkbox “ Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” is checked.
If this does not solve the problem, follow Method 4

Method 4 : Leave HomeGroup
- If you are using a Home Group for sharing, try leaving it
- Go to HomeGroup in Control Panel
- Click on Leave Homegroup
- Restart your PC
Method 5 : Testing what it could be

The Basic steps of troubleshooting anything, is to cross of any possible culprits, one by one.
- Disable Network before putting your computer to sleep
- Go to Network & Sharing Center ( Control Panel )
- Click on Change Adapter Settings
- One by one, Right Click all the listed adapters and click on Disable
- Now,
- Check if your computer goes to sleep.
- If it does, you have narrowed your trouble down to a network adapter.
- Enable the adapters one by one to pin point the exact adapter that is causing trouble
- To Enable the adapters:
- Right click – > Enable
- If you pin point the network adapter that is causing trouble, try updating it’s device drivers
- Remove non-essential ( add-on ) devices for the time being
- You might have some USB Devices like printer / scanner / USB storage etc. plugged in to your system.
- It is possible that one of the devices is causing your computer to not go into sleep mode.
- To check :
- Unplug the devices one by one & after each device is removed, try putting your computer to sleep
Hope this helps you. For any queries, please use the comments box
February 2, 2014
Review : Systools Hard Drive Data Recovery for Windows
Data & Information are synonymous terms. In today’s world data is the most important factor for any individual or business. We carry out all essential data in Pen drivers, external hard drives etc. All this information flow requires a lot of read & write operations. The devices carrying the data do have a life expectancy period. Even, otherwise any data storage device could fail without any prior notice. But, the main question is that when your Data fails, do you have sufficient resources to recover it ? Does the software you are using supports the kind of device & file system your storage device has ? Recently, Systools contacted me to test one of their products SysTools Hard Drive Data Recovery Software for Windows .

Review : SysTools Hard Drive Data Recovery for Windows

My test environment consisted of :
- One 16gb USB Pen drive ( FAT 32 File system )
- One 500 GB External Hard Disk Drive ( NTFS File system )
- The data on my Pen Drive had 12 GB of JPEG images
- My 500 GB external Hard Disk drive had Four Partitions.
- The First Partition was completely formatted
- The data on the Second Partition was deleted
Key Features of SysTools Hard Drive Data Recovery are :
- Complete Hard Drive Data Recovery
- System Partition Recovery
- Formatted Partition Recovery
- RAW Partition Recovery
- Corrupt MBR, MFT or FAT recovery
- Recover from Internal / External Storage
- Recover from CD / DVD / Pen Drive ( flash drives ), Data Cards etc.
- Maintains the Folder Structure
- Recover photos, video, music, documents & other multimedia files
- Supports all Windows Version ( Windows 8 32 bit & 64 bit, Windows 7 32 bit & 64 bit, Vista, XP, 2000 & below )
Recovering Data has never been so easy, The takes almost 30 seconds from downloading the software to Installing it & starting the recovery process.
- Download & Install the software
- Activate it
- Click on Scan Disks
- Just Select the disk drive you wish to recover data from
- Click on Recover Partition button
- Now, Select from Normal Data
- Deleted Files & Folders Only
- Formatted Partition
- Click on Recover
- Instantly, the process starts.
- I selected the Formatted Partition option
- As this was a dummy partition of 350 MB, it took almost 10 minutes for this software to recover the partition
- After the recovery process is completed,
- Click on Close
- Select all the files & folders you wish you recover
- Click on save in the Navigation Bar
- Select the location of your recovered Files & folders
- Click on Save
SysTools Hard Drive Data Recovery is a great tool, When it comes to recovering your valuable data from almost any source in your Windows Computer. It works with all versions of Windows i.e. 32 & 64 bit and can search through NTFS & FAT files systems. The recovery process within this software is very easy & all necessary information is right in front of you. Its simple, yet a powerful tool for recovery.

5/ 5stars
January 14, 2014
Review : Ultimate Windows Tweaker 3.0 for Windows 8 , 8.1
Tweaking or Customizing Windows is something that a lot of us want to do. Changing some setting or doing something different with your Computer has it’s own kicks. But, Customizing Windows safely & getting the most out of it is no easy task. Any day to day user of Windows will have to endure a lot of time to achieve any customization they wish to do with Windows. But, what if there is an application, built specifically for your Windows 8 PC, that could let you do almost every possible tweak or customization safely & easily ? The Windows Club, one of the Authority Web portals on Windows has rolled out a new version of their famous Ultimate Windows Tweaker & this time it adds support for Windows 8 | 8.1 .Ultimate Windows Tweaker 3.0 by The Windows Club is a freeware program that allow the Windows 8 / 8.1 users to easily & efficiently tweak Windows features to personalize the look and feel of your Windows.

To download UWT follow this link.

Review : Ultimate Windows Tweaker 3.0 for Windows 8, 8.1

5/ 5stars

UWT 3.0 offers a lot of features, some of them are :
- System information
- User Account Control
- Security Tweaks
- UI Customization
- Performance Tweaks
- Internet Explorer Customization
- Some Additional Customizations
To open the program, Right Click in and click on Run as Administrator ( Remember to read the Read me file in your downloaded package )

On the main screen itself, System Information is displayed. What I liked the most about this start screen is that it offers the most used recovery options in Windows. In a single click, you can open the Advanced recovery menu ( Windows 8 / 8.1 ) & you can also use SFC /SCANNOW ( system file checker utility ) to check for any File related corruption.

The Second option on the left hand options bar gets you to the Customization menu.

Within this option, you can :
- Customize the Taskbar
- Customize File Explorer
- Customize the Modern UI in Windows 8 | 8.1
- Use Some additional Customization Options
The Third Option is User Accounts. Here you can :
- Change User Account Control Settings
- Change all User Specific settings
The fourth option lets you do Performance tweaks, Some of them are :
- Reduce the time taken by Windows to force shutdown your system
- Reduce the waiting time to kill the unresponsive applications & services
- You can even check the option to Auto Kill non responsive programs
- If you are using an SSD, the first option to choose here would be to Turn off Search indexer
The Security Tweak bar is the next option. This is basically a Control Panel of all the security related tweaks that can be done on Windows. This is something all the IT professionals look for. Getting all of them in a single click is much appreciated:

Some of the tweaks that i played here are :

With Ultimate Window Tweaker 3.0 you can also Tweak your Internet Explorer, you can :
- Control the Overall IE options
- You can change the look & feel of your IE
- You can Disable Active Scripting
- Use between GPU and Software Rendering
- & a lot more
But, that’s not all. You can use the Additional Tweaks Section :

Another Amazing feature of this tool is the ability to Restore Defaults. This option is available under every Tweak menu, if you think you did something wrong, just click on Restore Defaults & you will go back to the stock Windows Settings.

Before Using the Ultimate Windows Tweaker 3.0 for Windows 8 | 8.1, make sure to create a Restore Point
January 9, 2014
Fix : Broken libraries in Windows 8.1 | Restore Default Libraries
This post will help you fix broken libraries in Windows 8 , 8.1 & Windows 7 | Restore Default Libraries. This post also shows you the steps to show & restore your libraries in Windows operating system. Sometimes the library folders get corrupted & the whole functionality of the libraries is affected. This post will also fix the issue when you cannot find your files stored in the libraries or open the library folders at all.

Below are the steps to fix Windows Libraries :

Step 1 : Show the Libraries
- Go to This PC ( Computer )
- Click on View
- Click on Navigation Pane
- Check “show all folders”
- Check “Show Libraries”
- Do not uncheck anything that is already checked
Step 2 : Restore Default Libraries
- Now,
- Locate your libraries in the left hand pane
- Right Click
- Click on Restore Default Libraries
- That’s it.
If you still face an issue with your libraries, please use the comment section & i will try to help.
November 24, 2013