Loss of multiple functions

Question

A few days ago I saw an announcement of a critical system failure - but could not track it down: nothing seemed to be affected. Today, however, I cannot load or open Norton Internet Security, Windows Firewall, System Recovery, the Event Viewer, or any Office Program, including email. It tells me that there is no Wifi or Audio or Intel RST service, or connection to the Internet. I appear to have all my documents and photos, can view and copy files to a USB stick, but not run them. Otherwise, I can log on as usual and it is displaying no blue screens or other visual abnormalities in the display.

Is there a critical system service underlying all these - or have I been hit by a virus?

elainesages · Accepted Answer

Many thanks. The ePSA Preboot System Assessment is showing no problems with any devices. My device manager under the Control Panel also said everything was working okay. But when I try to load services under the Network, or Windows Firewall, or the Intel RST service, it says it cannot be enabled because some other group process is missing - error code 0x80070422.  When the thorough test mode has completed I will get exact wording.

nyc10036 · Answer

reboot quickly tap F12 a few times run Dell Diagnostics

nyc10036 · Answer

Apparently 0x80070422 is Windows update error.   .

nyc10036 · Answer

I haven't had that happen to me before.

If you think that your laptop has been compromised by malware, you can always boot up in Safe Mode and do a scan again.

It may be a good idea to do a backup of your hard drive.

elainesages · Answer

The diagnostics told me that nothing was wrong with the hardware; in safe mode with networking I found I could run a Norton antivirus scan - which also showed up no threats. Bringing up services.msc I discovered, however, that almost every service had been disabled. I went down the list manually turning them on to automatic and discovered on rebooting that my laptop was working again. Have downloaded virus updates and still found nothing.

So it is all working again, but I am worried that I don't know what turned off the services in the first place.

elainesages · Answer

You were right identifying a Windows Update error: all this happened after a critical Windows security update was automatically downloaded and installed.  Running the troubleshooter, I identified a windows update database error and it also repaired a corrupt service registration. Yes, good wake-up call to back up everything now.

Inspiron

Loss of multiple functions

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