Windows Upgrade Help and more

Yeah, that's solid advice. One extra thing—if you're comfortable, try temporarily disconnecting any non-essential USB devices before the repair, as they can sometimes interfere.

You could also run the built-in Windows troubleshooter for privacy settings. Another option is to check for a pending Windows update that might fix it.

Thanks! The troubleshooter helped, but now my game controllers aren't working after the clean boot.

I’m trying to install some required software for a game, but the setup keeps failing. Both the DirectX and Visual C++ redistributable installers won’t move past the very first “initializing” stage. They just hang there indefinitely. I’ve tried running them as an administrator, but it doesn’t help ...