Can't save changes to desktop, start menu, etc. Help!

Carnivore · 23 May 2016

I'm trying to use TeamViewer 11 to help my elderly Dad get his Win10 machine running again after something reset it, or at least wiped out his preferences.

I was able to restore some of his desktop shortcuts, but I can't get any more shortcuts to stick. Any changes I make to his start menu also won't stick. He also can't see his Favorites in IE11 (old habits die hard), despite the fact that the Favorites folder still exists with all of his links in his Users folder.

Whatever caused this to happen also seems to have taken out all of his default Win10 apps (Calendar, Calculator, etc). I tried using Powershell to restore them but the Event Viewer shows the installation keeps failing.

I scanned with Malwarebytes, it looks clean.

I had him reboot, and spent a very long time guiding him over the phone to make new desktop shortcuts without TeamViewer running at all, and none of those changes he made himself stuck through a reboot either.

I'm hundreds of miles away so reinstalling Windows and all of his software, docs and data is not an option. I'm at my wit's end.

Does any of this sound familiar and are there any suggestions on what I can try to break out of this hosed situation?

dalchina · 23 May 2016

Hello,
First, does he have any usable system restore points? If so, try one.
Second, I assume he doesn't use disk imaging and hasn't created a system image. Disk Imaging, routinely updated, is a most useful way of recovering from problems without technical help.

Without these, I suggest:
at an admin command prompt

sfc /scannow

If this fails (check the log) you could proceed with
the two DISM commands here:
DISM - Repair Windows 10 Image - Windows 10 Forums

If that fails, I would suggest an in-place upgrade repair install.

Carnivore · 23 May 2016

Good suggestions that I'd already started working my way through. System Restore had failed, and sfc /scannow didn't find any issues.

I finally tracked it down to a corrupted user profile, and followed the steps given here to fix it.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4...ofile-fix.html

Once Windows rebuilt his profile, the missing Windows apps showed up again too.

Pretty frustrating fault. Thanks for the help, though.

dalchina · 24 May 2016

Great you've fixed it.. Yep, that's one that occurs too often. Seems another weakness.

Sometimes it's 'Windows' - sometimes it's a profile problem - and that one usually occurs for some with a major upgrade.

Carnivore · 24 May 2016

It turns out he was in the habit of turning off his computer with the physical power button instead of using the Windows shut down menu. I'm going to assume that's what caused the corruption, although I don't know for certain if that's what did it.