Windows 11 Problems: Unable to Update or Repair

Windows 11
1

I’m having trouble fixing Windows corruption issues. The system won’t update or repair, giving me error code 0x80248014. While some games run smoothly, others crash with errors.

Faulting application name: start_protected_game.exe, version: 1.6.5.0, time stamp: 0x65d49024
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0000019a000341db
Faulting process id: 0x0x1910
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1DACBE10B0735A6
Faulting application path: D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\ELDEN RING\Game\start_protected_game.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report Id: b20e6277-1233-44a2-8ebd-5ea1d28344d7
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Even clean installs of the system and Nvidia drivers fail, despite wiping all data. However, running the sfc /scan command now shows no issues.

2

Hi there. Sorry to hear about the trouble with your Windows install. It sounds like you’ve tried some steps already, but let me help you walk through a few more steps to try and get things fixed.

First, let’s take a look at the crash error message you’re getting. It looks like the issue might be related to the Steam game ELDEN RING, but since it’s accompanied by Windows corruption errors too, we need to tackle both problems simultaneously.

Initial Steps

  1. Run DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth: As you’ve already checked with SFC, now we’ll move to DISM to try and fix your system. To do this, search for Command Prompt, right-click on it, and run it as admin. Type DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth, and wait for it to complete.

  2. SFC in Safe Mode: If DISM doesn’t fix the issue, we might need to run SFC again but this time in Safe Mode. To do this, restart your computer, and press the Shift key while clicking Restart. Once your computer boots into Advanced Startup Options, click Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Settings > Safe Mode. In Safe Mode, open Command Prompt as admin and run sfc /scannow again.

Check the Event Viewer

To figure out what’s causing the crashes and corruption issues, we need to dive a bit deeper into your system logs.

  1. Open Event Viewer: Press the Windows key + R to open the Run dialog box, type eventvwr, and press Enter.
  2. Find Relevant Errors: In Event Viewer, go to the Windows Logs section, click on the ones labeled System and Application, and look for error messages around the timestamps of your crash issues. This might give us some more specific errors we need to fix.

Reinstall Problematic Software

In this case, since ELDEN RING is at the center of the crash, we might need to reinstall the game, and Steam if necessary, to start from a clean slate.

Clean Install of Nvidia Drivers

As you mentioned you’re having trouble with Nvidia drivers too, let’s do a clean install to ensure that any wrong or outdated drivers are removed before reinstalling the latest versions.

Summary

Let’s summarize what we’ve tried so far:

  • SFC Scans: We ran the System File Checker scan, which didn’t find any integrity issues.
  • SFC in Safe Mode: We ran SFC again in Safe Mode to cover all bases.
  • DISM: We used the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) command to fix system corruption issues.
  • Event Viewer Analysis: We checked system logs for error messages to pinpoint the problem.
  • Software and Driver Reinstall: We reinstalled problematic software and drivers.

If none of these steps resolve your issues, it might be time to consider reinstalling Windows altogether. Before doing that, if you’d like to try one last fix, try resetting your PC to the last known good configuration using the System Restore feature.