Forum Discussion
tatianalarina
Nov 01, 2021Copper Contributor
Widgets don't work
I've just installed Windows 11 and it's so annoying. Messenger and WhatsApp apps do not work (that's a topic for another thread) and widgets work only if I disable the display driver and then turn it...
Mousefluff
Nov 02, 2021Iron Contributor
You need this service below to be working at the absolute minimum to be able to install the apps (to run them you also need practically ALL the other apps set up as well, due to many of them being service dependencies / sub-components of another service.) Even if you were only to configure this one service, you need to configure the other services to be able to USE the apps. A lot of people ignore this. You can edit that list as well (based on recommendations on this page and also the default template in the Microsoft Security Compliance Toolkit 1.0, and also your personal needs.)
"AppX Deployment Service (AppXSVC)" -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/security/windows-services/security-guidelines-for-disabling-system-services-in-windows-server#appx-deployment-service-appxsvc
"Per-user services in Windows 10 and Windows Server" -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/application-management/per-user-services-in-windows
- tatianalarinaNov 02, 2021Copper ContributorI ran in Power Shell both scripts you posted, restarting the computer after each of them. Still no luck. As for your last answer, I think you're overrating my computer expertise. Where do I find these services and what should I do with them? I can only tell you that there are two instances of wsappx in my Task Manager and both of them seem to be running fine.
- MousefluffNov 02, 2021Iron Contributor
If you want to actually list the services in powershell, so you can view the settings in the registry editor...
dir "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services" | Format-Table -Property Name
The script just speeds up the process of having to edit a ridiculous amount of keys all at once (it does not restore damaged entries or fix missing service entries.) If you just upgraded, they should already exist in the registry anyways.
I could create a script that refreshes the entire registry hive, but I haven't thought about doing that at this point (would be slow, would have to be quite selective as to not destroy anyone's configuration.) Process protection (PPL) typically is good enough to stop any modification to those keys, unless someone intentionally disables it, along with the ELAM driver (Early Launch Anti-Malware.) It couldn't actually get that bad, unless someone deliberately went in and deleted a lot of critical registry entries and files. It's very difficult to achieve this even with administrator privileges (DISM / SFC can restore it in almost all cases. It's a very lengthy process to disable all the file protection features I mean. It's almost illogical to assume that that's what happened in this case / scenario.)
- tatianalarinaNov 02, 2021Copper Contributor
Mousefluff Again, I think you're overestimating my computer expertise 🙂 I tried running the procedure of restoring the system from the image file, but I ended up with the following message:
"cmdlet Add-AppxPackage at command pipeline position 1
Supply values for the following parameters:"
And I had no idea what to do. Since my version of Windows is Windows Pro, I tried typing 6, but that didn't do anything.
- MousefluffNov 02, 2021Iron Contributor
"As for your last answer, I think you're overrating my computer expertise. Where do I find these services and what should I do with them?"
I posted the links so you could read about the scripts to see what the names mean (so you can edit them if you are interested.) All you have to do is just copy paste the scripts (one big blob of text,) into Powershell.
The semicolon placed at the end of each command, is so you can copy paste the ENTIRE text all at once, and then hit enter (two step process practically, unless the text only partially fits, and then you have to copy paste the rest.) That script above could be slow because it's restoring the ENTIRE image from an offline ISO image. You have to make sure to select the index based on your edition of Windows (or it will restore the wrong one, and you have to start the process OVER again.)
I went through this whole process to upgrade one of my computers, but I have it entirely automated at this point (aside from needing my service configuration script to match the Microsoft Security Compliance Toolkit 1.x templates, as well as the official NIST checklists for Windows Server 2019/2022. It's not the most perfect script, it doesn't harden the Operating System services, though I could make it do that, but it does return it to a default state.)
- MousefluffNov 02, 2021Iron Contributor
Even after following that step, you also have to check for missing Access Control Entries (a corrupted root DACL / discretionary access control list, often can be the cause with a major revision update.) These are all issues you would see on Windows 10, not just Windows 11 btw...
"Microsoft Store Apps fail to start if default registry or file permissions modified: Fix file system permissions that's changed manually" -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/shell-experience/microsoft-store-apps-fail-to-start#fix-file-system-permissions-thats-changed-manually