System apps not working

[Askingcarpet]

Sorry for the vague title, but i don't think i can convey such a specific and unrelated set of problems with a specific title

All of this started absolutely out of nowhere. Not after installing an update, or a program, or anything. I literally turned on my pc and they were there. I also haven't downloaded basically anything outside of steam and official websites, so i highly doubt it's malware (the build is 3 months old and windows defender has found no threats whatsoever)

 

First thing, almost none of the system apps are working. Settings just freezes as soon as i click on something, control panel is empty, services.msc just opens and freezes as well, among others.

This means i cannot use a recovery point or attempt to revert any windows updates

The other problem is that none of my internet browsers work. Firefox and edge will just stay on the home page, as if they were loading the url i input, but never loading. This means i cannot download anything to it, which reduces my options. 

 

I'm completely dumbfounded as to why this is happening. Nothing is quite wrong. Both of my HDDs seem to be in working order and i have no problem writing or reading in either. 

I've got an i3 8100 with 8gb of 2400hz ddr4, so it's not that the hardware itself is slow. All of my games and apps load regularly with no slowness whatsoever, just the system apps. 

I've already tried deleting my temp files, updating windows when settings finally loaded after like 30 minutes, turning it off and disconnecting it for around 20 minutes, disconnecting and reconnecting the hard drives, change the RAM slots, etc. 

Is there anything i can do? I REALLY don't want to already have to reinstall windows on a 3 month old build.

Thanks in advance

[kelvinhall05]

Not sure why it's happening, but I'd just nuke the drives and reinstall Windows.

 

You could also give Linux a shot.

[Askingcarpet]

2 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Not sure why it's happening, but I'd just nuke the drives and reinstall Windows.

 

You could also give Linux a shot.

One would mean reinstalling over 500gb of games on a 6mb/s connection which would be a bit short of an eternity

The other one would mean basically giving up most of my games and a $100 windows license.

Might as well wait a bit to see if anything else is possible, back up my games and give reinstalling windows a shot anyways. 

By the way, isn't there any way to use system recovery without the settings app? Like at startup or something?

[kelvinhall05]

 

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, Askingcarpet said:

One would mean reinstalling over 500gb of games on a 6mb/s connection which would be a bit short of an eternity

The other one would mean basically giving up most of my games and a $100 windows license.

Might as well wait a bit to see if anything else is possible, back up my games and give reinstalling windows a shot anyways. 

By the way, isn't there any way to use system recovery without the settings app? Like at startup or something?

IIRC your Windows license is tied to your BIOS, so reinstalling shouldn't get rid of it. You could also probably just leave your game drive alone.

 

I think you can try some recovery stuff if you boot from an install USB for Windows 10.