dism

A wave of community test results and vendor confirmations this week has put the latest Windows 11 cumulative update under a harsh spotlight: several SSDs can disappear from Windows during sustained, large write operations after installing the August 12, 2025 update (KB5063878), with a...

Windows 11’s built‑in Reserved Storage quietly ties up several gigabytes on the system drive to make updates and system maintenance more reliable — and if you’re on a cramped 128GB (or smaller) SSD, temporarily turning it off is a legitimate, supported way to reclaim space fast, provided you...

If your AppData folder is ballooning and consuming valuable disk space, this guide walks through four practical fixes — from safe, built‑in cleanups to targeted troubleshooting for runaway temp producers — and explains the trade‑offs and safeguards every Windows user should know. Background...

Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) is the built‑in Windows tool for repairing the Windows component store and servicing images — and when used correctly it’s the most reliable first‑line fix for persistent Windows 11 stability problems that never quite go away after normal...

Windows 11’s storage warnings are annoying—and avoidable—if you know where Windows hides junk and which built‑in tools remove it safely and quickly. This feature piece breaks down three fast, low‑risk ways to clear up storage space in Windows 11, explains what each does behind the scenes, and...

If uninstalling KB5063878 on Windows 11 throws the installer error code 0x800f0905, there are practical, verifiable steps that will usually get you past the failure — but the decision to remove the patch has to be weighed carefully because the August cumulative update in question has been tied...

Microsoft’s Reserved Storage can quietly hold back roughly 7 GB of your system drive, and there are safe, supported ways to turn it off — but doing so trades a small amount of automated update resilience for more usable disk space on tight SSDs. This guide explains what Reserved Storage is, how...

If Windows 11’s July 2025 cumulative update (KB5062553) won’t install on your PC and you’re seeing rollback messages or error codes such as 0x800f0922, 0x80073712, or “Updates failed — your device is missing important security updates,” this guide walks through a practical, evidence-backed...

Windows 11 packs a surprisingly capable set of built‑in troubleshooters that can automatically diagnose and repair many everyday PC problems—from flaky Wi‑Fi and silent speakers to frozen updates and stubborn printers. This guide distills what matters: where to find these tools, how to run them...

If the Connect app seems to have vanished on your Windows 11 PC, it hasn’t—Microsoft simply moved it behind an optional component called Wireless Display. Reinstalling it takes just a few clicks, and with the right settings and drivers, your computer can again act as a Miracast receiver for...

File system errors on Windows 10 and Windows 11 can look cryptic — a terse message, an error code, or “The parameter is incorrect” when you plug in a USB stick — but they usually point to fixable problems with system files, disk metadata, or the drive itself. This guide consolidates proven...

Microsoft has acknowledged an active investigation after multiple community researchers, test benches and SSD vendors reported that the Windows 11 August cumulative (commonly tracked as KB5063878, OS Build 26100.4946) can cause certain SSDs to vanish from the operating system during sustained...

Microsoft released an out‑of‑band (OOB) non‑security update on August 19, 2025 — KB5066189 for Windows 11 (OS Builds 22621.5771 and 22631.5771) — to repair a regression introduced by August’s cumulative updates that can block device reset and recovery operations, and to deliver a servicing stack...

Microsoft has quietly resolved a critical upgrade-path bug introduced with the August Patch Tuesday roll‑out that blocked many Windows 10-to-Windows 11 and several Windows Server upgrade paths, leaving administrators and end users scrambling for workarounds during a narrow migration window...

Windows 11 includes a built-in Reserved Storage feature that can quietly hold back several gigabytes of your system drive for updates and system caches — and, if you urgently need every last byte, you can temporarily disable it to reclaim that space. Background: what Reserved Storage is and why...

Microsoft’s latest cumulative for Windows 11 24H2 has been tied to a small but serious cluster of storage failures that can make NVMe SSDs disappear during heavy writes and, in a handful of cases, leave data unreadable — a scare that underscores why updating and backup discipline still matters...

Windows 11’s built‑in antivirus, Microsoft Defender, is normally updated automatically through Windows Update — but when that pipeline falters, administrators and power users must know how to update Defender manually, safely, and at scale to avoid windows of exposure that attackers will happily...

The SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED blue screen is one of those Windows errors that looks frightening but, in most cases, can be diagnosed and fixed without replacing hardware — provided you approach it methodically and understand what the stop code is telling you. This article breaks down...

Windows 10 reaches its official end of support on October 14, 2025 — and if you intend to run, repair, or virtualize the OS after that date, downloading and archiving an official Windows 10 ISO today is the simplest, safest hedge against broken links, tampered images, and last‑minute panic...

Over the years I’ve built a compact, free toolkit of Windows utilities that quickly expose the usual suspects when a PC slows down: low disk space, runaway background processes, flaky RAM, overheating hardware, or an aging storage drive. The MakeUseOf piece that started this conversation lays...