Windows 8 Problem

[Rennn]

Often when I start a friend's laptop with Windows 8 64-bit, it tosses up the error message, "Failed to connect to Windows all-user install service." I think this error prevents access to many features such as Windows Firewall, because on the rare occasion that this message doesn't appear on start-up, I can access everything. Once this error message appears, I can no longer access things like the Windows Firewall, and the PC will hang up and temporarily freeze every few seconds.

 

Since Microsoft seems to ignore the majority of inquiries about this error, I decided to ask here. Any ideas how to diagnose or fix this permanently? I personally use Windows 7 and avoid Windows 8 like the plague, but my friend is not very computer literate, and unless this is fixed soon she plans to just buy a new computer.

[Werne]

Failed to connect to Windows all-user install service.

I had to fix that once on my buddy's PC, worked quite well after I installed Debian over it. :biggrin: Anyway, to get to the matter at hand...

 

Windows 8 is a new OS and it's utterly unstable compared to Win7 and XP, it's quite possible that the problem has been brought in by a Win8 security update. The service that fails to work is responsible for installing .appx packages (Metro apps) so I don't know why would it affect Firewall. I do have some possible "solutions", they may or may not work:

 

 

There are a few things you can try to do, first I'd scan the whole thing with Malwarebytes, in case it's a virus. You can also try running the following in Command Prompt (CMD):

sfc /scannow

If that won't work, you can use a previous restore point and roll back to see if the problem persists. If everything works right, block automatic updates.

 

And then there is this command which claims to fix that problem:

sc config AllUserInstallAgent start= demand
net start AllUserInstallAgent

I know beter than to copy/paste commands into CLI but if you want to, knock yourself out. Note, none of these worked in my case, they may work for you, but I'm not sure. :confused:

 

 

 

Personally, I'd format the entire hard drive, nuke the thing from orbit, and get something else. Win7 is decent, XP is still decent too, Linux is also good for general use (being free is a plus, sucks when it comes to gaming though). Basically, anything is better than Win8. :thumbsup: