How to Repair the Component Store in Windows 8

In this article we will talk about Component Store in Windows 8 and some scenarios of its repair. It is to be recalled that starting from Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced a concept of component based servicing. The component structure allowed to make more stable the installing / removing updates,  security patches and service packs. Windows 8 architecture is also based on the same system. The files of Windows Component Store are located in the \Windows\WinSxS folder, having the property with time to grow significantly in size (for more details on why the size of this folder increases with time and how to shrink it, refer to this article).

However, in some cases the Component Store can be damaged that results in troubles when trying to install Windows updates or other Microsoft apps. To repair the Component Store in previous Windows versions (Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 /R2), Microsoft has created a special utility – CheckSUR (System Update Readiness Tool  – KB947821). This utility is quite large (over 350 MB) and it is regularly updated with the release of new Windows updates.

What does this utility do? System Update Readiness Tool verifies the integrity of the following resources:

Files in these directories:

• %SYSTEMROOT%\Servicing\Packages
• %SYSTEMROOT%\WinSxS\Manifests

The contents of these registry branches:

• %SYSTEMROOT%\WinSxS\Manifests
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Schema
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Components
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing

If CheckSUR detects some errors or incompatibilities, it will try to repair them.

The troubles with the Component Store can result in different errors during Windows update installation. Here’s the list of typical error codes, which are to be eliminated with this utility.

The list of Windows Update errors caused by the damage of the Component Store

Code	Error	Description
0×80070002	ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND	The system cannot find the file specified.
0x8007000D	ERROR_INVALID_DATA	The data is invalid.
0x800F081F	CBS_E_SOURCE_MISSING	The source for the package or file not found.
0×80073712	ERROR_SXS_COMPONENT_STORE_CORRUPT	The component store is in an inconsistent state.
0x800736CC	ERROR_SXS_FILE_HASH_MISMATCH	A component’s file does not match the verification information present in the component manifest.
0x800705B9	ERROR_XML_PARSE_ERROR	Unable to parse the requested XML data.
0×80070246	ERROR_ILLEGAL_CHARACTER	An invalid character was encountered.
0x8007370D	ERROR_SXS_IDENTITY_PARSE_ERROR	An identity string is malformed.
0x8007370B	ERROR_SXS_INVALID_IDENTITY_ATTRIBUTE_NAME	The name of an attribute in an identity is not within the valid range.
0x8007370A	ERROR_SXS_INVALID_IDENTITY_ATTRIBUTE_VALUE	The value of an attribute in an identity is not within the valid range.
0×80070057	ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER	The parameter is incorrect.
0x800B0100	TRUST_E_NOSIGNATURE	No signature was present in the subject.
0×80092003	CRYPT_E_FILE_ERROR	An error occurred while Windows Update reads or writes to a file.
0x800B0101	CERT_E_EXPIRED	A required certificate is not within its validity period when verifying against the current system clock or the time stamp in the signed file.
0x8007371B	ERROR_SXS_TRANSACTION_CLOSURE_INCOMPLETE	One or more required members of the transaction are not present.
0×80070490	ERROR_NOT_FOUND	Windows could not search for new updates.

In Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 functional equivalent of CheckSUR utility is already integrated into the system and is called Inbox Corruption Repair. The Inbox Corruption Repair can work in two modes: background and manual. The background repair is run automatically if any errors occur when trying to install a Windows update. Then Windows automatically tries to repair a damaged component and reinstall the Windows Update package. If the automatic repair can’t solve the problem itself, the administrator can fix the errors manually.  having recovered the operability of the Component Store. This can be done using DISM (the Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image command) or Powershell (the Repair-WindowsImage cmdlet).

To check the state of the Component Store, open the elevated command line and run:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

The same Powershell command is:

Repair-WindowsImage -Online -CheckHealth

Performing CheckHealth takes a few minutes. As you can see, the current state of the component store in the image is Healthy, i. e. it doesn’t need a repair.

If any problems or errors are detected, you have to run the repair of the Store using the command:

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /Restorehealth

The same Powershell command is:

Repair-WindowsImage -Online -RestoreHealth

In this case the system files have been successfully recovered:

If the system wasn’t able to repair some of the components in the Store, you may need Windows 8 installation disk. Insert disk into your DVD-ROM or mount its ISO-image. Suppose, the letter G has been assigned to the distribution disk. Let’s display the list of available Windows 8 versions on the disk using the PoSH command:

Get-WindowsImage -ImagePath G:\sources\install.wim

In this example we can see that there is only one image (Windows 8 Pro) with the index 1 (Index: 1) on the disk.

The following command start the  storage recovery with the replace of the damaged components from the original Windows 8 image:

Repair-WindowsImage -Online -RestoreHealth -Source G:\sources\install.wim:1

After the repair is over, make sure that the Component Store is healthy.

The next (optional) step is to check the integrity of system files with the command:

sfc /scannow