Verify the Integrity of Windows Vista System Files
Windows Vista includes a utility that will scan your system for corrupt, changed or missing system files. Running this from the command prompt is much easier than booting off the dvd into repair mode.
To run this utility, you will need to open a command prompt in administrator mode. You can do that by right clicking the Command Prompt in the list, or by using the nifty keyboard shortcut.
Once you have an administrator command prompt open, you can run the utility by using the following syntax:
SFC [/SCANNOW] [/VERIFYONLY] [/SCANFILE=<file>] [/VERIFYFILE=<file>]
[/OFFWINDIR=<offline windows directory> /OFFBOOTDIR=<offline boot directory>]
The most useful command is just to scan immediately, which will scan and attempt to repair any files that are changed or corrupted. You can run that command with this command:
sfc /scannow
Alternatively, you can just choose to verify a particular file, or you can do a verify only, which will check but not repair anything. Here's an example:
Note that this utility exists for XP as well, but has different options.
thanks, great website and very helpful
Great Tip thanks keep in comin'
Hi,
i am wandering, if the sfc process takes in account the last Microsoft KB's, i have installed since
my xp->vista home premium upgrade?
As the version of system files could change after the security updates?
If NO, wont my system files return to previous state (before the Kb updates) and so will i have to reinstall all the kb's again?
thanks for advice
regards
How do you suggest that I Diagnose and fix the problem when SFC returns that it is unable to fix errors?
I'm not quite sure what the problem is but a number of DLLs cause errors during startup and Windows Media Center will no start (somewhat fundamental to a Media PC).
Also Windows Update has failed install kb932539 about 5 times now.
FYI I'm runnign Vista 64 Home Premium edition.
cheers for this saved me alot of hastle with a bad .dll file all fixed now. cheers! great site
What would be helpful is a way on how to identify the corrupted files - if any. I ran scannow several times and it found corrupted files that it could not fix. Then it gave the path to a log that I was unable to open (access denied). So I was just as smart as before. It would be nice to know how to open this log and have a look at what's corrupted.
thanks for this, it helped me out big time! I was about to load in the vista disk and do a reboot.
WHS - you probably need to try opening the log file with a program that is running under an administrator account.
Try running notepad as an administrator, then open the log file with " File > Open ".
You guys are awesome! I use a celeron running vista. Is there a way I can make her go faster. Software or some tweak I can do on em?