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Settings wont stay open, search bar doesnt work

Hello,

Had some ram blue screens, changed the faulty ram and repaired drives, although it said nothing was wrong.


Now windows feels a bit unresponsive, and if I open settings, it automatically closes after a few seconds, so I cannot access anything within settings, meaning I cant check for windows updates or check windows defender. The task bar also has some problems when I boot my PC such as unresponsiveness and it needing to restart. Although given time, it seems to work, although the search bar does not work. If i try to search in the search bar, it brings up the grey background of the search box UI and that is it, so I cant search for any programs.


I ran sfc /scannow and it says it did not find any integrity violations.


I have in place upgraded to windows 10, that did not fix anything.


I cant upgrade to windows 11, as to do this I need access to settings.


Everything else seems to be okay, I just cant use anything in settings, and I cannot use the search function.






Dear LiamCreasey1

Thank you for posting in the Microsoft community.

According to your description, this issue is due to a possible problem with your hard disk, so the system performed an automatic repair.

First of all, it is recommended that you back up your important data to another external hard disk, or to a cloud drive.

You can try the following website:

Download Windows 11

Select Download tool now - perform Media creation tool - select Yes - select Accept - select Create installation media for another computer - select DVD ISO file - Save as local.

Execute the local WINDOWS.ISO file-right click-mount-select execute setup.exe-select don't use it for now-select keep personal files and settings-select Next-wait for the WINDOWS Repair installation to complete-reboot the WINDOWS computer.

This will help in trying to upgrade the system to Windows 11

Best Wish

Shawn.Z-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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Question Info

Last updated April 19, 2025 Views 74 Applies to: