New
#11
This! This right here – I checked that out (I’d seen it in the CBS log but thought it was just some line of code, didn’t realize it was an actual folder name (can you tell I’m no expert yet?)), and somehow the “Windows Notify Email.wav” copy in there was actually the Win8.1 version I’d replaced the original Win10 version with! I have no idea how that happened – maybe something Windows did automatically during the update to 21H1? Anyway, I replaced it with the actual Win10 file, ranSFC /scannow
, and:Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
Man, that was such a dumb yet easy fix, lol. Thanks for pointing me the right way! Updating the OP and marking this as solved.
(As for why I didn’t create a system image immediately, I wanted to finish customizing the OS before backing it up. Did create plenty of restore points though, but I replaced the sound file almost at the start of the customization process so it would’ve undone all that work anyway.)
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Edit: Right, can’t update the OP anymore. Oh well, this post explains everything anyway. Thanks to everyone who pitched in! Y’all were great.