Finally Got Windows 10 TP to Pass an SFC Check!

[NoelC]

For those who care whether their Windows 10 system reports that it is corrupted via the System File Checker:

 

Apparently, with build 10041 Microsoft hasn't got it all quite right yet, but...

 

I have finally been able to repair it!  This is progress.

 

All of this must be done in a privilege-elevated command window,

 

1.  SFC /VERIFYONLY and SFC /SCANNOW commands run in an elevated CMD window won't usually complete the first time you run them.  But...  If you try the command enough times it will likely get all the way to 100%.  It seems to be able to get farther every time.  With an SSD-based system this isn't that painful, though it takes a while.

 

2.  Once you've gotten SFC to go all the way to 100%, it will likely report that "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files".  Searches through CBS.log (never fun, as there is no string you can easily use to search for the actual errors, though "error" is often helpful) reveal a variety of issues, including "0x800f081f - CBS_E_SOURCE_MISSING" and warnings like "Duplicate ownership for directory" and others.

 

3.  The typical fallback for SFC failures to correct problems is to run DISM.  Specifically:

 

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

 

However, either because Microsoft hasn't yet published everything it needs online, or because DISM's online access isn't fully working, it doesn't seem to complete.  In that case, you can make an ISO file of the build and ask DISM to use that reference to fix things.  See this page for more info on how to make an ISO from an .ESD file as Microsoft has not (yet) published an ISO for build 10041.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_install/instructions-create-a-bootable-iso-file-using-esd/d2768b51-221a-436e-af4e-d3b9118a8864
 

4.  Once you've created the ISO, and have either directly mounted it, or burned it to DVD and have that available as a drive letter, use the following command to ask DISM to correct problems using that ISO as a reference.  I'm assuming your mounted ISO is available at drive d: here.  If not, use the appropriate drive letter:

dism /online /cleanup-image /restoreHealth /source:WIM:d:\Sources\Install.wim:1 /limitaccess

5.  After the above completes successfully to 100%, it will report that "The restore operation completed successfully".

 

6.  Now you have to run SFC /SCANNOW one more time to completion to get it to correct the database problems.

 

If this is important to you, this is a case where persistence pays.  I've actually been able to get a Windows 10 build 10041 system to the point where it reports "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations".

 

 

-Noel

Edited March 21, 2015 by NoelC