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A large number of services (most of which appear to be core Windows services) are showing in services.msc with their service names rather than their display names (eg. BITS instead of Background Intelligent Transfer Service), and their description as 'Failed to Read Description. Error Code 2'.

I've tried running sfc /scannow as suggested in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13153214/windows-service-is-giving-description-failed-to-read-description-error-code-2, but that hasn't worked.

A large number of items in Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) are showing in the form @(name).dll,-(number). For example, under Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options, the first option is listed as '@appinfo.dll,-200'.

I'm guessing this is a MUI / resources issue from the format of those names...

The only thing I can think of that might have caused this kind of damage is the AMD Catalyst Uninstall Utility, which I ran shortly before I noticed the problem. In the log file for that, it mentions deleting the registry key SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\MUI\StringCacheSettings - is it safe to copy this key from another computer where everything's working to see if that fixes it?

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  • what is sfc telling you? Has is finished without any issues? Or was it unable to fix all damaged files. May 13, 2013 at 4:06
  • When I ran it before, it said it found and fixed all the issues it found (some changes required a reboot, which I performed). I've just run it again and it says Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations..
    – Charles
    May 13, 2013 at 6:52

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Had the same issue. Copied that registry key mentioned from another machine and imported it and everything is working correctly now.

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  • how did you do that?
    – user273580
    Jun 11, 2013 at 15:11
  • Yeah, I ended up trying this as well and it worked perfectly.
    – Charles
    Jun 12, 2013 at 1:15
  • @axrwkr I just exported the value using regedit on another PC and then copied the file over to the computer with those messages and ran it. You could also just recreate the value yourself - by memory, it's just a single value.
    – Charles
    Jun 12, 2013 at 1:18

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