Folks, Windows's own system image couldn't be restored from Windows. I had to go download some program called Macrium Reflect and use the underlying VHD files.

What broke? Oh, you don't know? It was a bad Windows update that had a broken driver or something causing driver verification to fail.

Not that I've ever seen. It usually means it's time to reinstall.

I was missing printer drivers it found the drivers (iirc)

I can't say I've ever had a problem solved by any of the troubleshooters, yet I always go to them just in case one day they do.

Usually they either direct you to the most generic solutions possible (that you've already likely done by the time you're resorting to the troubleshooter), reset your networking (thanks Windows, I felt like having to reconnect to all my networks again) or come back saying they couldn't find a problem...

Which clearly isn't the case Microsoft, because if there wasn't a problem, why the fuck would I be using the troubleshooter? For the shits and giggles?

only once for startup repair, twice for system restore. all client systems, not mine, since the introduction of those features. one of those ended up needing a full backup and reinstall soon after anyway.

plus the one time shadow copies from automatic system restore points saved a client's cad, docs, images, pdfs, and other files from a poorly-executed ransomware attack (that failed to clear out those vss copies). a nirsoft utility was able to save everything.

the 'fixit' troubleshooters are nearly worthless.

both fixed things many times

It will sometimes wipe your static IP configuration and switch it to DHCP which could theoretically fix something, but I've only ever seen this break things instead.

Many times.

My old desktop seemed to have something wrong with its LAN port and the troubleshooter fixed it pretty consistently.

This would only be possible if it installed Linux.

I would usually have issues with my wi-fi, where the connection after a reboot won't work and the wi-fi GUI would reset itself everytime i tried. Network troubleshooter would fix it 100% every time and quite quickly, so there was no reason to actually figure out what was at fault.

Nah more features and flexibility the better

I had a problem once when my laptop display was just black after booting. Triend everything, nothing worked. Return to OEM authorized support. They had my laptop for 4 weeks, so solution. Then just refunded the full price & retuned back the laptop.

Ubuntu LTS since then & no sick or weird issues since.

It broke itselt, it broke Win2Usb and it broke grub. Thats it hahaa

I had it work once for a wifi issue that was caused by an update, during either Vista or Win7 era. Outside of that, it fixed an audio problem for Win10 on a single app.

No. Tried it like 3-4 times in my life for really f-ed up not booting machines and it never worked for me. Haven't tried it since the ealy Win10 times, though.

Yes, I've used it to fix multiple issues from boot issues to driver issues.

It used to fix WiFi issues for me back on Windows Vista (bleh). Vista would always have issues when I woke my laptop from sleep mode, and my WiFi would be disconnected and unable to reconnect/properly turn off. Running the troubleshooter would restart my wireless card. Other than that I haven't encountered anything it's helped, but I don't use windows too often these days.

Just been through the fire of having to clone my system to a new SSD and no, startup repair did nothing for me.

The HP help and troubleshooting software did better than the Microsoft one.

I think it helped with a internet issue once, but I probably just needed to reset something.

I'm pretty sure it just does the absolute basic troubleshooting.