Win-10 Pro
21H2
19044.1706
Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4170.0

This started when I updated Windows a few days ago (06/29). Everything
went well (I thought), no error messages, and the programs I use most
often all worked fine.

The next day several of those same programs would not run. Windows
said that there was an error in the directory. (For each program,
that was the directory in which the program's exe file resided.) All
of these were in my user/dan directory, with which there had never
been any problem.

I went to a backup disk and copied the user/dan directory in total.
That solved the problem --- until the next day, then the same problem.

I ran chkdsk c: /f /b /r, which listed no errors. Then I installed an
even older complete backup with Macrium. Again, no error. Everything
worked. Again, next day same problem.

The only thing that runs at night is the Macrium backup, which I've
been using for years.

Now I am totally baffled. I have checked the disk and tried restoring
two different full backups, and yet I am still having the same problem
that I NEVER had before doing that Windows Update. Updates were
KB5013887, KB5014699, KB690830.

HELP!

--
Protect your civil rights!
Let the politicians know how you feel.
Join or donate to the NRA today!
http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XR014887
(use cut and paste to your browser if necessary)

Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.

This is a win10 group but most people don't have time to read every
post. You coudl help yourself by putting the topic of your question in
the subject line.

Sometimes it's easier to think of a meaningful subject line AFTER
writing the post.

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sun, 03 Jul 2022 20:52:19 -0400, dyno dan
<logic@is.important> wrote:

>Win-10 Pro
>21H2
>19044.1706
>Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4170.0
>
>
>This started when I updated Windows a few days ago (06/29). Everything
>went well (I thought), no error messages, and the programs I use most
>often all worked fine.
>
>The next day several of those same programs would not run. Windows
>said that there was an error in the directory. (For each program,
>that was the directory in which the program's exe file resided.) All
>of these were in my user/dan directory, with which there had never
>been any problem.
>
>I went to a backup disk and copied the user/dan directory in total.
>That solved the problem --- until the next day, then the same problem.
>
>I ran chkdsk c: /f /b /r, which listed no errors. Then I installed an
>even older complete backup with Macrium. Again, no error. Everything
>worked. Again, next day same problem.
>
>The only thing that runs at night is the Macrium backup, which I've
>been using for years.
>
>Now I am totally baffled. I have checked the disk and tried restoring
>two different full backups, and yet I am still having the same problem
>that I NEVER had before doing that Windows Update. Updates were
>KB5013887, KB5014699, KB690830.
>
>HELP!

On 03 Jul 2022, dyno dan wrote
(in article<q2d4chpnhjos54ccfsso15tc4vg9hahsha@4ax.com>):

> Win-10 Pro
> 21H2
> 19044.1706
> Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4170.0
>
> This started when I updated Windows a few days ago (06/29).

from which version of Windows? an earlier version of Win10? Win8.x? Win7? XP?
> Everything
> went well (I thought), no error messages, and the programs I use most
> often all worked fine.
>
> The next day several of those same programs would not run. Windows
> said that there was an error in the directory. (For each program,
> that was the directory in which the program's exe file resided.) All
> of these were in my user/dan directory,

err... when you installed the programs, did you do a custom install to drop
them into user/dan? Usually Windows gets quite insistent on having most
programs, other than special utilities like Rufus, be in the Programs folder
(32-bit programs on a 32-bit Windows install, 64-bit on a 64-bit install) or
the Programs (x86) folder v(32-bit on a 64-bit install). If not intalled
there, stuff doesn’t run properly or at all.

Why did you stick programs into a user folder?
> with which there had never
> been any problem.

ooh, boy.
>
>
> I went to a backup disk and copied the user/dan directory in total.
> That solved the problem --- until the next day, then the same problem.
>
> I ran chkdsk c: /f /b /r, which listed no errors. Then I installed an
> even older complete backup with Macrium. Again, no error. Everything
> worked. Again, next day same problem.

sounds Registry-like. You’ll need to reinstall your stuff into the proper
(according to MS) folder.
>
>
> The only thing that runs at night is the Macrium backup, which I've
> been using for years.
>
> Now I am totally baffled. I have checked the disk and tried restoring
> two different full backups, and yet I am still having the same problem
> that I NEVER had before doing that Windows Update. Updates were
> KB5013887, KB5014699, KB690830.
>
> HELP!

Wolffan wrote:

> Why did you stick programs into a user folder?

Can't see that matters, I know the O/P has done a chkdsk, but I'd be be
suspecting a dead/dying disk.

On 04.07.2022 02:52, dyno dan wrote:

> The only thing that runs at night is the Macrium backup, which I've
> been using for years.

Then for one night don't run the backup and you will
know whether this is the problem. And sometime
mysterious problems disappear if you reboot Windows.

On 7/3/2022 8:52 PM, dyno dan wrote:
> Win-10 Pro
> 21H2
> 19044.1706
> Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4170.0
>
>
> This started when I updated Windows a few days ago (06/29). Everything
> went well (I thought), no error messages, and the programs I use most
> often all worked fine.
>
> The next day several of those same programs would not run. Windows
> said that there was an error in the directory. (For each program,
> that was the directory in which the program's exe file resided.) All
> of these were in my user/dan directory, with which there had never
> been any problem.
>
> I went to a backup disk and copied the user/dan directory in total.
> That solved the problem --- until the next day, then the same problem.
>
> I ran chkdsk c: /f /b /r, which listed no errors. Then I installed an
> even older complete backup with Macrium. Again, no error. Everything
> worked. Again, next day same problem.
>
> The only thing that runs at night is the Macrium backup, which I've
> been using for years.
>
> Now I am totally baffled. I have checked the disk and tried restoring
> two different full backups, and yet I am still having the same problem
> that I NEVER had before doing that Windows Update. Updates were
> KB5013887, KB5014699, KB690830.
>
> HELP!

The only thing Macrium Reflect interacts with, is VSS (Volume Shadow Service).

There is a limit of 64 shadows on a desktop OS. The reason the
value is kept low like that, is the COW (Copy-On-Write) performance,
could get slower and slower, the more persistent shadows that
are in usage.

In an administrator terminal

vssadmin list shadows

will tell you if a few shadows are present.

Macrium has many fancy features such as "Incrementals Forever"
and I don't know if any of these features can exhaust all the
shadows available or not. Sometimes shadows are exhausted,
when a user has three backup programs and a certain brand
of program is present (not Macrium).

A shadow is just "partition versioning". It freezes copies of
the partition. Things like Windows "File History", may also
use VSS for versioning.

I have no idea how or where your symptoms are coming from.
And at this point, I'm looking at Macrium, only because
it seems to be changing the symptoms a bit. How or why VSS
would do this, is a mystery.

You can also try doing Properties on the file and
looking at the Security tab. There is a tick box for "...Executable".

[Picture] If the picture is not visible, right-click the thing and select "Reload"

https://i.postimg.cc/G2ZkvVdM/executable-permissions.gif

Paul

Well, the conclusions appears to be bad memory. This thought was then
supported by sticking a WIN-10 repair CD in the CD-ROM, and then
booting to it. I received a message, "not enough memory to load...."

You know you're in trouble when your 8 gigs of RAM won't hold a (max)
650kb program.

This computer has given me much trouble the past year or so. So I am
quitting on it. I have just ordered a new one. It will have more
memory, a SSD boot drive, and a 1 Tb. system drive, a CD ROM, and
Windows 11 Pro pre-installed.

I will save portions of this computer, such as the drive, CD ROM
drive, and power supply. Never know when something might come in
handy.

-dan z-

Today the world is the victim of propaganda because people are not
intellectually competent. More than anything the United States needs
effective thinkers competent to do their own thinking.
-William Mather Lewis

On 7/5/2022 2:40 PM, slate_leeper wrote:
> Well, the conclusions appears to be bad memory. This thought was then
> supported by sticking a WIN-10 repair CD in the CD-ROM, and then
> booting to it. I received a message, "not enough memory to load...."
>
> You know you're in trouble when your 8 gigs of RAM won't hold a (max)
> 650kb program.
>
> This computer has given me much trouble the past year or so. So I am
> quitting on it. I have just ordered a new one. It will have more
> memory, a SSD boot drive, and a 1 Tb. system drive, a CD ROM, and
> Windows 11 Pro pre-installed.
>
> I will save portions of this computer, such as the drive, CD ROM
> drive, and power supply. Never know when something might come in
> handy.
>
> -dan z-

The memory tester, should show some details of your hardware config,
while it does the test. Pressing <esc> exits the test and kicks off
a reboot. This does not always list the hardware details correctly
(because the release might be from well before your new computer).

https://memtest.org/

You can see a year ago, they were distributing 531b.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210101084008/http://www.memtest.org/

But I also have a small USB stick here, labeled "MT6 AMD", which
I think is loaded with a USB version suited to testing even the
new motherboard (Zen3).

Memtest is rather unique, in that it does not have an OS. It is
code which is jumped to, as if it was "init PID 1". The media
holding the executable, does not even have to "list" in File Explorer,
and appears like "so much mystery meat". Yet, when booted, it works
just fine. It used to be offered on a floppy, as a testament to how
small the executable portion is.

The executable "lifts itself out of the way" and tests underneath.
What it cannot test, is E805 reserved memory, which is a memory
reservation used by the BIOS. To test memory 100%, or at least
get closer, you test two sticks in single channel mode, if the
test passes, you flip them between their two sockets, and
swap the high memory stick for the low memory stick. The test
coverage differs, depending on whether it is receiving the high memory
map or the low memory map. Some reservations could be at both ends
of the BIOS memory space. There might still be, say, 1 megabyte of
memory not being tested.

There are pictures here. Note, in particular, the third picture with
the red text. On an Nforce2 system, a stick of Crucial RAM, one of
the chips blew entirely, and the red text just scrolls and scrolls
like a bastard when that happens. Marginal memory, you might get
one red line of text for a "stuck-at fault". But if a memory chip
blows and goes tristate, the bus just flopped around in that lane,
and memtest can find that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memtest86

*******

In Windows, in the Settings, type "memory" in there and there
is a Windows Memory Diagnostic available on reboot. Where it fails,
is in the interface department, and does not give as nice detail
as memtest tries to.

Contrary to what you might think, the Windows memory tester works.
Even if it does not test all the RAM, it spotted a problem with
my Core2 machine that I had not noticed. I could not triangulate
to the broken stick using memtest - I had to change out all four
sticks (the sticks were never "good" in the first place, they
were Kingston CAS6 and ran at stock voltage, but ran "hot" at
stock voltage, which indicates something was wrong with the chips).
I was able to find four sticks of CAS5, which was a shocker I never
expected to find. But the Core2 machine blew out, and that was that.
Some regulator tied to the Southbridge (runs off five different
voltages) seemed to do it. Due to the usage of steel rivets, I
could not take that thing apart and try and fix it.

If you have an LGA1366, sometimes an adjustment of the internal
memory controller voltage, was enough to cause all the sticks
to be detected. It looks at first, to the untrained eye, that
it's a "socket contact problem" on the CPU. But someone figured
out there was a voltage issue playing into that. Pretty weird,
whatever was going on.

For most other situations, the memory should really report in.

*******

You can use CPUZ to review what hardware is in the machine.

The ZIP English might be good enough. You have to use the pulldown,
to examine the memory sockets one at a time. Each DIMM has a
flash memory chip declaring the particulars of the DIMM, which
is read over a serial bus at low speed.

https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html#google_vignette

If using an Enthusiast motherboard, there are voltage adjustments
you can make. I bumped Vnb on the Core2 machine for a number of
years, because my X48 seemed to be a bit lame. Thanks, Intel!
That might be close to an IMC voltage on some other chips
(integrated memory controller, core logic voltage).

Paul

On Mon, 4 Jul 2022 06:59:35 +0100, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>
wrote:

>Wolffan wrote:
>
>> Why did you stick programs into a user folder?
>
>Can't see that matters, I know the O/P has done a chkdsk, but I'd be be
>suspecting a dead/dying disk.

Today the world is the victim of propaganda because people are not
intellectually competent. More than anything the United States needs
effective thinkers competent to do their own thinking.
-William Mather Lewis

>On Mon, 4 Jul 2022 06:59:35 +0100, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>Wolffan wrote:
>>
>>> Why did you stick programs into a user folder?
>>
>>Can't see that matters, I know the O/P has done a chkdsk, but I'd be be
>>suspecting a dead/dying disk.

And you would be correct. I did check the disk with the windows chkdsk
utility, using the "fix everything" options of /b /f /r. There were no
reported errors. However a friend suggested we try a new drive anyway.
So it now has 1 1Tb SSD drive, and runs fine and faster.

Note that I did a complete restore with Macrium of the last running
day when there were still several programs that reported an unreadable
directory when the icon was clicked. Interestingly, when restored, all
of those previously blank icons were back and everything worked.
Weird. How can a backup/restore cure unreadable things?

Well, at least it's back.

-dan z-

--
Protect your civil rights!
Let the politicians know how you feel.
Join or donate to the NRA today!
http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XR014887
(use cut and paste to your browser if necessary)

Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.

On 7/20/2022 4:37 PM, dyno dan wrote:
>> On Mon, 4 Jul 2022 06:59:35 +0100, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Wolffan wrote:
>>>
>>>> Why did you stick programs into a user folder?
>>>
>>> Can't see that matters, I know the O/P has done a chkdsk, but I'd be be
>>> suspecting a dead/dying disk.
>
>
> And you would be correct. I did check the disk with the windows chkdsk
> utility, using the "fix everything" options of /b /f /r. There were no
> reported errors. However a friend suggested we try a new drive anyway.
> So it now has 1 1Tb SSD drive, and runs fine and faster.
>
> Note that I did a complete restore with Macrium of the last running
> day when there were still several programs that reported an unreadable
> directory when the icon was clicked. Interestingly, when restored, all
> of those previously blank icons were back and everything worked.
> Weird. How can a backup/restore cure unreadable things?
>
> Well, at least it's back.
>
> -dan z-

Generally, Macrium does not seek to back up "broken" things.

It reflects badly on Macrium corporation, if a user restores
and CHKDSK needs to be run over the restoration partition.

To do a "smart" backup, *requires* the partition to be structurally
in order. If the partition was damaged, the backup would be damaged,
and the damage could be "error multiplied". The backup software
then, wants things to be nice and clean, before it starts doing
the actual run.

To prevent that from happening, Macrium does some amount of
scanning early in the backup. If a drop dead issue is detected,
it "bails with Error 9" or similar. The user is expected to
use CHKDSK, to make the volume consistent enough for backup.

If you do a "dumb" backup, it may resort to "dd.exe" like behavior.
But it might be difficult to convince it to make that leap. If
it does not recognize a partition type, it can do "dd" on it,
such as a Linux Swap perhaps.

If Macrium was using CHKDSK after a restore had happened, we
would notice.

Now, when Macrium backs up a partition, it stores directory/file
info of some sort. It captures that info, early in the backup.
It writes out something at the end (the details collected early,
could be augmented by materials collected during the backup).

Macrium supports file by file backup (in the paid version).

But Macrium also supports partition resize (on even the free version).
If you back up a 2TB C: and restore to a 1TB C: on SSD drive, it can switch
to file-by-file mode internally, and "squeeze" the files in.
The "file system" in such cases, is not exactly what was
backed up. By changing partition sizes, there is some opportunity
for Macrium to reconcile errors in there. Not much opportunity,
but some tiny amount of opportunity. Things like permissions
or SIDs, should not change.

It never changes your data. If a Notepad file says "Hello Mom",
after any restoration the file still says "Hello Mom". However,
the "bytes on disk" could change slightly. If you restore to
a smaller SSD, you may find that some amount of defragmentation
is a side effect. And once I learned of that, I used it
for defragmenting stuff :-) (Only for special cases, not as a wacko
defragmenting everything in sight.) I use JKDefrag block view,
as a means of visualizing what a Macrium restore is able to achieve.

I might use Macrium for defragmentation, any time I suspect some
other tool I would use, would "make a mess of a disk and take
hours to make that mess". I then weigh the pros and cons carefully,
before deciding what to do. That's why it does not get used all
that often.

So if you changed partition size, during the restore, there is
an opportunity for "stuff to happen". Hopefully, good stuff.

Paul

On Wed, 20 Jul 2022 22:06:57 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid>
wrote:

Thanks, Paul. As always, I appreciate your input.

Still game? See my new post about VeraCrypt....

Dan-Z

--
Protect your civil rights!
Let the politicians know how you feel.
Join or donate to the NRA today!
http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XR014887
(use cut and paste to your browser if necessary)

Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.