Error Messages

Error “Could not find the Recovery Environment” When Resetting PC

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could not find the recovery environment - reagentc.exe

When you attempt to use the Reset this PC option to Reset (“Remove everything”) or Refresh (“Keep my files”) Windows 10 or 11, the following error may appear:

Could not find the recovery environment

Insert your Windows installation or recovery media, and restart your PC with the media.

could not find the recovery environment - reagentc.exe

This error occurs if the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) is disabled, or if the WinRE image is corrupted in the system.

tips bulb iconRegardless of this issue, you should be able to carry out Refresh or Reset operation by booting the computer with your Windows 10 or 11 Setup disk.

With the Windows RE feature disabled on the computer, if you boot into the Windows RE (without the setup or repair disk), the following features would be missing in the Windows Recovery Environment:

Additionally, if Windows RE is disabled or corrupted, the following error occurs when you attempt to create a Windows Recovery Drive (USB).

We can't create a recovery drive on this PC

We can't create a recovery drive on this PC
Some required files are missing. To troubleshoot problems when your PC can't start, use your Windows installation disc or media.

This article tells you how to fix the errors “Could not find the recovery environment” and “We can’t create a recovery drive on this PC” by enabling or repairing the Windows Recovery Environment feature.Read more

Error 0x800706D9 Installing or Updating Store Apps

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You may be unable to download new apps or update existing apps using the Microsoft Store due to error 0x800706D9 — Something unexpected happened. Error code 0x800706D9 translates to “There are no more endpoints available from the endpoint mapper”, which doesn’t make much sense for the end-user.

Also, the same error is shown when you install or update apps using PowerShell.

store apps error 0x800706D9

The error message is:

Add-AppxPackage: Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CF6, Package could not be registered.

error 0x800706B9: While processing the request, the system failed to register the windows.firewall extension due to the following error: There are no more endpoints available from the endpoint mapper.

This post tells you how to fix Microsoft Store 0x800706D9 in Windows 10/11.Read more

Windows Defender “HostsFileHijack” alert appears if Telemetry is blocked

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defender hostsfilehijack

Since July last week, Windows Defender started issuing Win32/HostsFileHijack “potentially unwanted behavior” alerts if you had blocked Microsoft’s Telemetry servers using the HOSTS file.

defender hostsfilehijack

Out of the SettingsModifier:Win32/HostsFileHijack cases reported online, the earliest one was reported at the Microsoft Answers forums where the user stated:

I’m getting a serious “potentially unwanted” message. I have the current Windows 10 2004 (1904.388) and only Defender as permanent protection.
How is that to evaluate, since nothing has changed at my hosts, I know that. Or is this a false positive message? A second check with AdwCleaner or Malwarebytes or SUPERAntiSpyware shows no infection.

“HostsFileHijack” alert if Telemetry is blocked

After inspecting the HOSTS file from that system, it was observed that the user had added Microsoft Telemetry servers to the HOSTS file and routed it to 0.0.0.0 (known as “null-routing”) to block those addresses. Here is the list of telemetry addresses null-routed by that user.Read more

Fix: Api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll or api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing

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api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll missing

When you run a program on a computer running Windows 8.1 or earlier, you may see an error denoting that the module api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll or api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing. Here’s the full error message verbatim:

The program can’t start because api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.
The program can’t start because api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll missing

For example, these errors may occur when playing online games or while running programs that were compiled using Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 & Windows 10 SDK — e.g., Office Word, Excel, Access, Skype, QGIS, Apple iTunes, or Adobe products.

api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll missing

These DLL missing errors usually indicate that the VC++ runtime libraries are missing. A runtime library is a collection of files (usually .dll files) used by some programs at run-time to provide one or more native program functions or services.

tips bulb iconUninstalling and reinstalling the respective program can help in cases where the software vendor has packaged the runtime library within the installer.

Many users have attempted to download and install the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015. However, this may not resolve the issue. This article tells you how to fix the above errors easily using an update released by Microsoft.Read more

Fix Error 0xc1900223 When Installing Windows 10 Updates

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windows update error 0xc1900223 in windows 10

The error 0xc1900223 may appear when you attempt to update your Windows 10 installation, especially when installing a feature update like v1903 or v1909. There is no actionable advice from Microsoft, regarding this error.

windows update error 0xc1900223 in windows 10

However, the error continues to occur even when attempting to install the update every time.

The SetupDiag utility (download) would log this error:

Error: SetupDiag reports abrupt down-level failure.
Last Operation: Finalize
Error: 0xC1900223 - 0x20009
LogEntry: Error MOUPG CSetupManager :: ExecutePreDownloadMode (8491): Result = 0xC1900223

The usual Windows Update troubleshooting methods may not fix this error. This post tells you how to prevent the error 0xc1900223 in Windows 10.Read more

Fix: Device Harddisk DR0 has a “bad block” Error in Event Viewer

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hard disk bad block found event viewer

Of late, one of my Windows 10 computers has been running sluggishly, hangs frequently or shuts down abruptly. The malware scans turned out to be normal and there are no processes consuming huge CPU time or memory. The disk usage remained at 100% though, regardless of the app I open.

The System event log showed multiple disk error entries. Here is one such event:

Log Name: System
Source: disk
Date: 15-08-2019 17:37:49
Event ID: 7
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: DESKTOP-3V7LVDA
Description:
The device, \Device\Harddisk0\DR0, has a bad block.

hard disk bad block found event viewer

After restarting Windows, the following event log entry gets added.

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date: 15-08-2019 19:28:09
Event ID: 41
Task Category: (63)
Level: Critical
Keywords: (70368744177664),(2)
User: SYSTEM
Computer: DESKTOP-3V7LVDA
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

The same error occurred for my secondary hard drive (Disk 1), and the error message read The device, \Device\Harddisk1\DR1, has a bad block.

If you have multiple hard drives and want to know which hard drive has a bad block, note down the Disk # indicated in the event log. Open Disk Management to see the list of drives and the corresponding drive #.

disk management hard drive number

A bad block is an area of the hard drive that is no longer reliable for storing and retrieving data. Bad block may indicate corruption or physical damage.

There are two types of bad blocks: A physical bad block comes from damage to the storage medium. A soft, or logical, bad block occurs when the operating system (OS) is unable to read data from a sector. Examples of a soft bad block include when the cyclic redundancy check (CRC), or error correction code (ECC), for a particular storage block does not match the data read by the disk. (TechTarget.com)

And, I couldn’t clone the drive using Macrium Reflect or EaseUS ToDo Backup. Macrium Reflect threw the error “clone failed” code 9, and EaseUS software stalled at 51% while cloning the disk.

In this article, I’ll tell you how I resolved the hard drive “bad block” error.Read more

Windows 10 Error 0x80070005 When Installing a Feature Update

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Windows 10 Error 0x80070005 When Installing Feature Update 1903

Your Windows 10 computer may show the error 0x80070005 when installing a feature update — e.g., when upgrading from version 1809 to 1903. The exact error message verbatim is below:

There were problems installing some updates, but we’ll try again later. Feature update to Windows 10, version 1903 – Error 0x80070005

Windows 10 Error 0x80070005 When Installing Feature Update 1903Read more

[Fix] Cannot Delete WindowsApps folder on Non-System Drives

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cannot delete windowsapps folder

If you have changed the default app save location to an external hard drive or secondary drive, Windows will create three folders, namely, WpSystem, WindowsApps, and WUDownloadCache on the target drive.

You may later change your mind and revert the default save location to C:\. But you may be unable to delete the leftover WindowsApps folder on your secondary drive due to tight NTFS permissions assigned to the folder. The other two folders, WpSystem and WUDownloadCache can be deleted easily.

When you access the WindowsApps folder on your secondary drive, you may see the following message:

cannot delete windowsapps folder

You have been denied permission to access this folder.

And the Advanced Security Settings dialog shows the error:

Can't open access control editor. Unable to perform a security operation on an object that has no associated security.

cannot delete windowsapps folder

This article explains how to properly delete the leftover WindowsApps folder on your secondary or external hard disk drive(s).Read more

Windows Logs Off when Shutdown or Hibernate is used

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windows logs off when shutdown or hibernate is used

Over these years, at least since the Windows 7 era, we’ve seen several cases where the system logs you off when clicking on the Shutdown or Hibernate option in the Start menu. The problem may be seen in Windows 8, Windows 10, or 11 systems as well.

What causes Windows to log off the account instead when the shutdown or hibernate option is used?Read more