Can’t open Settings in Windows 10

The Win­dows 10 oper­at­ing sys­tem in ques­tion is good because it allows you to quick­ly solve a num­ber of prob­lems if nec­es­sary. If it is impos­si­ble to open the set­tings, for exam­ple, in the 10th ver­sion of Win­dows, there are sev­er­al ways to fix the sit­u­a­tion — both built-in and third-par­ty. Our experts have select­ed the most sim­ple and effec­tive.

Problem Solving Methods

How to open unopen­able set­tings in Win­dows 10? It’s sim­ple: we use proven meth­ods. About them fur­ther.

Scanning SFC

To ensure that the set­tings in Win­dows 10 open as expect­ed, try scan­ning and repair­ing sys­tem files in auto­mat­ic mode. First you need to call the com­mand line. The eas­i­est way to do this is to use the menu (intro­duced in the lat­est ver­sions of dozens) — invoked by right-click­ing on the Start but­ton. Or you can do it dif­fer­ent­ly by press­ing the key com­bi­na­tion Win + X. There is also an option for the lazy: write “cmd” in the search bar, right-click on the pop-up line and select the “Run as admin­is­tra­tor” option.

In the win­dow that opens, enter the fol­low­ing com­mand: “sfc /scannow” and wait for the process to com­plete. At the end of the scan, the sys­tem will give one of three pos­si­ble answers:

1. No errors;

2. Detec­tion of errors in sys­tem files (Win­dows will fix them auto­mat­i­cal­ly);

3. Detec­tion of errors, some of which the sys­tem is not able to recov­er.

4. If you see exact­ly the last option on the screen of your mon­i­tor, try reboot­ing the device and repeat the pro­ce­dure.

We use the official tool

Start­ing in ver­sion 1703, sys­tem set­tings trou­bleshoot­ing is avail­able in their own inter­face. To solve the prob­lem, you need to fol­low a num­ber of steps:

1. Go to Start, select the Set­tings tab (denot­ed as a gear). Or you can use a faster method — by press­ing the key­board short­cut Win + I.

2. Find the “Update and secu­ri­ty” sec­tion, in the list that opens, select the “Trou­bleshoot­ing” option.

3. A list of pos­si­ble prob­lems with sys­tem para­me­ters will open on the right side of the win­dow. Select the cur­rent one and feel free to click on the trou­bleshoot but­ton below.

4. Fol­low the sys­tem prompts (these steps may vary for dif­fer­ent Win­dows 10 updates).

Keep in mind that run­ning auto­mat­ic trou­bleshoot­ing with options is only avail­able in cer­tain cas­es:

1. Sound/video play­back;

2. Lack of inter­net con­nec­tion;

3. Win­dows Update;

4. Print­er oper­a­tion;

5. Food, etc.

Create a new user

Have you tried the above meth­ods and all to no avail? So, it’s time to move on to more rad­i­cal mea­sures — cre­at­ing a new account (admin­is­tra­tor). If you can­not do this due to prob­lems with open­ing the set­tings, use the Com­mon Con­sole Doc­u­ment (for those who have Win­dows 10 Pro installed).

First, open Start and in the search bar enter the fol­low­ing com­mand — “lusrmgr.msc” or you can make it eas­i­er by press­ing the Win + R key com­bi­na­tion, and then enter the above com­mand. A win­dow with local users/groups will appear on the screen. On the left side of it you will see the “Users” fold­er. Right-click on it and select the “New User” option.

For those who have ver­sion 10 installed — Home Edi­tion, a slight­ly dif­fer­ent way of work­ing with the com­mand line will do. It is nec­es­sary, again, to go to Start and enter “Com­mand Prompt” in the search bar. Then right click on it and run as admin­is­tra­tor. At the com­mand prompt, enter the fol­low­ing com­mand — “net user name pass­word / add”. You need to choose a user­name and pass­word for the new user.

Reinstalling system apps

Set­tings is a built-in (sys­tem) util­i­ty in Win­dows 10. This means that after rein­stalling it, any prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with open­ing / using the desired tab should dis­ap­pear.

1. To rein­stall, you just need to “enable” the Pow­er­shell util­i­ty through the search in the Start menu. In the win­dow that opens, click on the name of the PCM util­i­ty and run as admin­is­tra­tor.

2. In the win­dow that appears on the screen, enter the com­mand: “Get-AppX­Pack­age | Fore­ach {Add-Appx­Pack­age ‑Dis­ableDe­vel­op­ment­Mode ‑Reg­is­ter “$($_.InstallLocation)AppXManifest.xml”}”. That’s all: prob­lem solved.