Repair Windows 10 Using DISM Command-line Tool

If your Windows operating system critical files are corrupted, it will break some functionalities on the system. Usually in that case, you’re advised to run System File Checker (SFC) scan.

SFC usually scans the integrity of system files and if it found any violations, it replaces the system file with known good version. If SFC is unable to find a good version of repair-able system file, you’ll receive Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them error. Now, you’ll need to use Deployment Imaging and Servicing Management (DISM), a command-line tool to fix this issue.

DISM comes built-in with Windows 10 and it can be used to service and prepare Windows image (.wim). The reason of SFC scan failure is generally corrupt or broken Windows image which is unable to provide good version of critical system files. DISM can be used to repair this broken Windows image. Once you repair the Windows image, SFC will be able to fix corrupted system files as well.

You can use DISM command-line tool in Windows PowerShell and Command Prompt. Unlike SFC scan, the DISM tool may require Internet access to process specific commands or parameters. Here’s how you can repair your Windows 10 via DISM.

How To Repair Windows 10 Using DISM Command-line Tool

DISM can be used to repair Windows image in .wim or .vhd file. For this purpose, we’ll use Repair-WindowsImage cmdlet. You can read about all supported parameters for this cmdlet in this documentation.

Perform following steps to use DISM command-line tool.

1. Right click Start Button or press + X keys and select Windows PowerShell (Admin).

2. First we’ll check if the component store is repairable. This step is optional and if you like, you can skip it and directly go to step 3. So to check component store corruption, type/paste following in administrative Windows PowerShell window and press Enter key:

Repair-WindowsImage -Online -ScanHealth

3. To repair Windows image corruption, type/paste following and press Enter key:

Repair-WindowsImage -Online -RestoreHealth

4. Once you done with command execution, close Windows PowerShell or Command Prompt and reboot.

The DISM writes logs for these operations and they can be located at C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log and C:\Windows\Logs\DISM\DISM.log, assuming Windows is installed on C:.

You can check this video to illustrate working of DISM with Command Prompt:

Known Issues

#	Issue	Resolution
1	DISM error code 0x800F0954	You can use Add-WindowsCapability cmdlet instead of DISM to bypass error 0x800F0954. Complete fix mentioned here.
2	DISM error code 14098; The component store has been corrupted.	Repair Windows Update database. Read the complete fix here.
3	DISM error 1726; The remote procedure call failed	Read the complete fix here.
4	DISM error 0x800f081f; The source files could not be found.	Read the complete fix here. To fix similar error message with code 0x800f0906 on Windows 10 V1703, refer this fix.

So this is how you can use DISM to repair your Windows 10.

That’s it!