Keep working through the steps in order until you reach the end, and you are bound to fix the vast majority of problems. If that doesn’t fix what’s broken, advance to the next step. The idea is to first try the initial step in the sequence. That said, most of these approaches also work with Windows 7 and 8 (with slight variations), and the advice here applies almost identically to Windows 11, which Microsoft is gradually rolling out to Windows 10 users whose hardware can support the new OS via Windows Update from October 2021 into early 2022. I’ve now updated it for the latest versions of Windows 10. I initially wrote this story in 2016, but as Windows 10 has evolved over time, some of the steps have changed a bit. When that happens, users would be well advised to break out the following routine to help them set things back to rights. This often takes the form of worsening performance or stability, and can originate from damage to, loss of, or corruption of Windows system files typically found in the C:\Windows folder hierarchy. Sometimes a Windows 10 system starts misbehaving to the point where repair is needed.
