SFC gives conflicting results

  • Thread starter Thread starter JohnDavid
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JohnDavid

Running Vista Home Premium.
No problems with system performance or behavior, but I was curious to see if
the System File Checker would find anything. Ran sfc with the /verifyonly
parameter.

Upon completion, it displayed "Windows Resource Protection found integrity
violations. Details are included in the CBS.Log."

Using the guidance in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928228/en-us ("How
to analyze the log file entries....SFC.exe program generates..."), I
redirected the sfc entries to a separate file, sfcdetails.txt .

Reviewing that file, I see no indication of a problem; in fact, the results
look exactly like the example given in the above article for a situation
where sfc did not identify any problems with system files.

So it's not clear if there is anything to be concerned about. I could, of
course, run sfc in 'scannow' mode, but am hesitant since my system does not
seem to be broken. Any thoughts? Thanks.
 
But IS IT not broken? Is there a problem that SFC is 'aware of', but that
hasn't manifested itself yet in normal usage?
 
Running Vista Home Premium.
No problems with system performance or behavior, but I was curious to see if
the System File Checker would find anything. Ran sfc with the /verifyonly
parameter.

Upon completion, it displayed "Windows Resource Protection found integrity
violations. Details are included in the CBS.Log."

Using the guidance in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928228/en-us ("How
to analyze the log file entries....SFC.exe program generates..."), I
redirected the sfc entries to a separate file, sfcdetails.txt .

Reviewing that file, I see no indication of a problem; in fact, the results
look exactly like the example given in the above article for a situation
where sfc did not identify any problems with system files.

So it's not clear if there is anything to be concerned about. I could, of
course, run sfc in 'scannow' mode, but am hesitant since my system does not
seem to be broken. Any thoughts? Thanks.
Click to expand...

I thought that the first time you ran system file checker it really
couldn't find anything, it just builds a table that it will use as
it's baseline the next time you run it and tell you which files have
changed.
 
That's not my understanding of how SFC works. I don't believe it relies on
a first 'baseline' run, but rather, utilizes a database (for want of a better
term) that reflects file versions that Vista expects to find. That database
should be updated whenever Windows updates are applied to the system.
Thanks for your response.
 
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