Problem with MS apps settings & dism cmds.

Hi all, I'm having problems with all MS apps when trying to open app settings, the page is blank, also settings>apps freezes as soon as it's opened & eventually closes itself. I tried dism & this gives a strange error message, a restart will usually fix it but I would like to now what it means.
So far I have tried sfc & a in-place repair but problem remains, I even used Macrium to restore which worked originally but after a restart the problem returned.
I suspect a clean install may be the only solution but I'd like to know whether the problem is due to the recent cumulative update.
Attachment 227762

Thanks in advance.

..and if that doesn't help, as you've tried an in-place upgrade repair, suggests a problem with your user profile, which that won't fix. Otherwise some sort of disk corruption- try running
chkdsk c: /scan
from an admin command prompt

and if that's ok, try creating a new user for test purposes and see if behaviour is different.

But the behaviour after restoring your image seems odd..

FWIW I'm on 17763.379 and all seems well on 2 laptops.

Thanks Dalchina, I booted into safe mode & all works there, I tried sfc at the same time & no integrity violations.
I noticed that WD’s antimalware is running at 100% when the problems are occurring.
As everything within safe mode works I suspect the user profile & disk are OK.
I use disk monitoring software & all is 100%/OK.
The pc works fine after the restore it’s only after the cu is applied & WD has installed the latest definitions & I’ve restarted it does this.
Thanks FreeBooter, I also tried reinstalling all the apps with the same result.

Hmm, clean boot? Disable Defender?

I’m looking into disabling the antimalware or changing defender settings - some say changing the automatic scan will sort it - later when home, I have MB so that will cover any malware problem (hopefully).
I may also try uninstalling MB to see if that is affecting things.
Addendum:
I’ve noticed this under known problems (with the latest cu) could this be the cause?
[ADDED] After installing this update, MSXML6 causes applications to stop responding if an exception was thrown during node operations, such as appendChild(), insertBefore(), and moveNode().

Group Policy editor may also be affected when editing a Group Policy Object (GPO) that contains a Group Policy Preference for Internet Settings.

It was the cumulative update. I uninstalled it & after a restart or two everything is working.
YEAH!

Good analysis, but maybe points to an underlying issue, which, even of you hide this update might occur with the next.. but then, the next feature update isn't that long away...