While many people will balk and wish that Microsoft wasn’t slowly burying the trusted Control Panel, the Settings app has grown into a key feature of Windows 10. It’s the launchpad into controlling your system – from adding devices to controlling users and gaming features. If Settings stops working, Windows becomes pretty dysfunctional.
So if your Settings app is stalling or just not opening in the first place, here’s a bunch of fixes that should get it back to working order.
Related: Windows 10 Start Menu Search Not Working? Here are Some Fixes
A Simple Solution from Our Readers
Sometimes, the best solutions are those that seem too simple to be true. But in tech, that’s often the case, so kudos to our reader nico for leaving a comment with a solution that several other readers have reported back as working.
Here’s the fix:
1. Click the Start button, right-click the cog icon that would normally lead to the Settings apps, then click More and “App settings”.
2. Finally, scroll down in the new window until you see the Reset button, then click Reset.
Settings reset, job done (hopefully).
Alternative Ways to Open Settings
If you’re just looking for a quick workaround to a misbehaving Settings app, then your best bet could be to try and open it another way.
One method is to press Win + I to try and open the Settings app.
Alternatively, you can click the Action Center icon in the taskbar (the speech bubble at the bottom-right), and then click “All Settings.”
If these methods don’t work, or if your Settings app still can’t be accessed the normal way via your Start menu, then it’s time to try something a little more involved…
Reinstall and Re-Register Windows Apps
The Settings app in Windows 10 is counted among the official built-in Windows apps, so reinstalling it (along with every other Windows 10 app) should fix whatever problems you may have with it.
To do this, open the PowerShell (just type “powershell” into the Start menu Search, then right-click it and “Run as administrator”) and enter the following command:
That will re-register and reinstall all Windows apps, hopefully getting the Settings app (and others) back to full working order.
Run an SFC Scan
Before trying the more elaborate method of fixing the Settings app, here are a couple of quick fixes that might do the job:
- Scan your hard drive for errors – go to the Start menu, type
cmd
, open the command prompt, then typesfc /scannow
- That failing, you should try downloading the Windows Update Troubleshooter and see if that helps.
Create a New Windows User
If you still can’t open the Settings app, then it’s time for the more radical solution of creating a new administrator account and transferring your files over to it. Seeing as you can’t use the Settings app to create a new account, you can instead use the Microsoft Common Console Document if you have Windows 10 Pro.
1. Click Start and type
lusrmgr.msc
. In the Common Console Document, click Users, right-click users, then “add new user.” Enter your info, then sign out of your current account and into your new one either through the Start menu or Ctrl + Alt + Del.If you have Windows 10 Home Edition, then you’ll need to create a new user through the command prompt instead.
Click the Start menu, type
cmd
, right-click Command Prompt, and then click “Run as administrator.”In the Command Prompt type the following command but with the username and password that you want to create for the new administrator account:
You should see the message “The command completed successfully” to inform you that the account has been created. Music recording studio for sale.
2. Next, go to “Control Panel -> User Accounts -> User Accounts -> Manage another account.”
3. Select the new account you just created, “Change the account type,” then click “Administrator” in the new window, followed by “Change Account Type.”
The new user is now the administrator.
4. Sign out of your current account and into the new user account. Try accessing the Settings app, and it should now be working.
The next step is to transfer your files from your old Windows account to your new one.
Go to the system hard drive (where Windows is installed) in File Explorer, click View in the tab at the top, then tick the “Hidden items” box.
Navigate to your old user account in File Explorer (C:/Users/old account name by default) and double-click it. You’ll see the following prompt.
Click Continue, enter your account password when prompted, then copy and paste all the files from that account to your new one (located at C:/Users/newusername by default).
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You’ll see a message asking if you want to merge the folders from your old account to your new one. Click Yes.
Conclusion
It’s not simple, but creating a new Windows account is sadly the best workaround to this problem that’s managed to persist for some despite patches that have been released to tackle it. It’s worth stressing again that you should try the two simpler solutions at the start of this article before going through the hassle of creating a new account.
This article was first published in September 2016 and was updated in April 2019.
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In this ebook we’ll be exploring the multitude of options to fully customize Windows 10. By the end of this ebook you’ll know how to make Windows 10 your own and become an expert Windows 10 user.
First off, I would consider myself to know a little bit more than your casual computer user, but am definitely not an expert on anything in regards to it. Here is my story, it is long but I think I should be as thorough as possible:
Years ago a friend of mine and myself built my first home built pc. Everything was fine, except that we chose a 60gb ssd to run the os (Windows 7), which turned out to be way too small as it was nearly full ( around 1.5 gigs free) from just the os and about a year and a half of regular updates, so I decided to get a larger 250gb ssd, while my 1tb hdd had all of my programs, data, etc. In the meantime, my cpu was running consistently at a higher temp, which after some research I discovered was due to Windows update not running properly, causing the os to constantly be trying to update, working my processor harder than usual. Finally I decided to install the 250 gb ssd so I would have more room, but also with the hope that maybe it would allow windows update to work like normal.
I backed up everything, took out the 60 gb ssd, installed the 250 gb ssd, and then did a fresh install of Windows 7 on it. One thing that may have been a mistake on my part was that I did NOT take out my 1tb hdd when I did all of this, which according to my research was something I should have done.
Anyway, after the install, I loaded up Windows and the first thing I checked was Windows update, which still didn't work. At this point I had no clue what to do, and then I realized that I could upgrade to Windows 10. So I did, hoping that it would solve my problem, and maybe it would be better than 7! After the upgrade and installing all drivers, Windows update seemed to work normally! So I began to run some software that I had on my hdd, but I noticed that they weren't showing up on my installed programs. I figured that even though they were all entirely installed on the hdd, some important bit of them must have been on that 60 gb ssd that I took out, which was preventing me from seeing them. So I went ahead and reinstalled all of them (wasn't many, steam, premier, cubase, etc.). After reinstalling, everything runs horribly compared to Windows 7. Sometimes it takes 15 seconds just to explore the hdd from the explorer. Certain Cubase projects take minutes to open when they previously took seconds, and some of the audio files from projects don't even load entirely after the project opens. Steam is the same thing, not responding every time I open it. I have installed and reinstalled every program multiple times and nothing fixes it.
Sorry for the long text, but I figured it was important to say every step I took. My specs are:
I7-2600k 3.40GHz cpu
Gskill 16 gb (2x 8gb) DDR3 ram
ASUS P8H77-V mobo
Corsair 750w power supply
MSI GTX560 graphics card
Crucial mx200 250gb ssd
WD 1tb hdd (WD1002FAEX)
What I'm looking for are mistakes in my process, and/or possible solutions that will get Windows 10 running as well as Windows 7. I'd really appreciate any help I could get.
Thank you.
Years ago a friend of mine and myself built my first home built pc. Everything was fine, except that we chose a 60gb ssd to run the os (Windows 7), which turned out to be way too small as it was nearly full ( around 1.5 gigs free) from just the os and about a year and a half of regular updates, so I decided to get a larger 250gb ssd, while my 1tb hdd had all of my programs, data, etc. In the meantime, my cpu was running consistently at a higher temp, which after some research I discovered was due to Windows update not running properly, causing the os to constantly be trying to update, working my processor harder than usual. Finally I decided to install the 250 gb ssd so I would have more room, but also with the hope that maybe it would allow windows update to work like normal.
I backed up everything, took out the 60 gb ssd, installed the 250 gb ssd, and then did a fresh install of Windows 7 on it. One thing that may have been a mistake on my part was that I did NOT take out my 1tb hdd when I did all of this, which according to my research was something I should have done.
Anyway, after the install, I loaded up Windows and the first thing I checked was Windows update, which still didn't work. At this point I had no clue what to do, and then I realized that I could upgrade to Windows 10. So I did, hoping that it would solve my problem, and maybe it would be better than 7! After the upgrade and installing all drivers, Windows update seemed to work normally! So I began to run some software that I had on my hdd, but I noticed that they weren't showing up on my installed programs. I figured that even though they were all entirely installed on the hdd, some important bit of them must have been on that 60 gb ssd that I took out, which was preventing me from seeing them. So I went ahead and reinstalled all of them (wasn't many, steam, premier, cubase, etc.). After reinstalling, everything runs horribly compared to Windows 7. Sometimes it takes 15 seconds just to explore the hdd from the explorer. Certain Cubase projects take minutes to open when they previously took seconds, and some of the audio files from projects don't even load entirely after the project opens. Steam is the same thing, not responding every time I open it. I have installed and reinstalled every program multiple times and nothing fixes it.
Sorry for the long text, but I figured it was important to say every step I took. My specs are:
I7-2600k 3.40GHz cpu
Gskill 16 gb (2x 8gb) DDR3 ram
ASUS P8H77-V mobo
Corsair 750w power supply
MSI GTX560 graphics card
Crucial mx200 250gb ssd
WD 1tb hdd (WD1002FAEX)
What I'm looking for are mistakes in my process, and/or possible solutions that will get Windows 10 running as well as Windows 7. I'd really appreciate any help I could get.
Thank you.