“The configuration registry database is corrupt” message may appear on your system screen while you run a set of DISM checkups on your computer. If you are seeing this error code, there is nothing to worry about. You can solve this problem simply by following these easy fixes on your computer.
Fix 1 – Remove the latest Windows Update
The latest Windows Update may have caused this issue.
To enact this fix you have to force your device to access Windows Recovery Environment.
Follow these steps to do so –
1. Switch off your computer.
2. Then, start your computer.
When you see that the computer is starting up, press-hold the power button for 5 secs to completely switch off your device.
3. Keep repeating this process of start-force shutdown-start 3 times and at 4th time let your computer start normally.
You will see the Automatic Repair window.
4. Then, click on “Advanced options“.
5. In the Choose an option screen, click on the “Troubleshoot“.
6. Next, you have to click on the “Advanced options“.
7. We need to access the Command Prompt screen. Click on “Command Prompt“.
8. Then, select your account.
9. Next, you will be asked to put your account password in the box.
10. Finally, click on “Continue“.
11. At first, get a list of all the drivers of your system. Copy-paste this code in the CMD screen and hit Enter.
wmic logicaldisk get name
12. Then, check which drive contains the “Windows” folder. To test it out just execute this code.
dir drive_letter:
[NOTE – Check the first drive (it is the ‘C:’ drive in this case). If that contains the “Windows” folder, proceed to the next step.
If you can’t find the ‘Windows’ folder in there, continue to check all the drives one-by-one, until you find the “Windows” folder. ]
13. Once you have found out the ‘Windows’ folder, go to that drive.
drive_letter:
(Replace the ‘drive letter:’ with the drive letter that contains the ‘Windows’ folder.
Example – Suppose the ‘Windows’ folder is in the “C:” drive. So, the command will be –
C:
14. In the particular drive you have to create a scratch folder. Execute this command.
mkdir C:\Scratch
15. After creating the scratch file, copy-paste this DISM command and hit Enter.
DISM /Image:C:\ /ScratchDir:C:\Scratch /Cleanup-Image /RevertPendingActions
NOTE–
Replace the drive letter “C:” with the drive letter of the drive where you have located the ‘Windows’ folder.
16. After the DISM command is executed, you will see this message has appeared-
“Reverting pending actions from the image….
The operation completed. Any revert of pending actions will be attempted after the reboot
The operation completed successfully.”
Finally, close the Command Prompt screen and restart your computer. If your computer restarts normally, your problem is solved and you are free to continue using the system.
Otherwise, if the system prompts for the reinstallation of the updates, follow these instructions –
1. Switch off your computer.
2. Force-shutdown the system and power it ON again.
3. Repeat the process and let it boot up normally at the 3rd time.
4. Once you have appeared in the Windows Recovery Environment, go this way –
Advanced options > Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Command Prompt
Wait till the Command Prompt opens up.
5. Then, copy-paste these commands one-by-one and hit Enter to execute these commands.
del C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution del C:\Windows\WinSxS\cleanup.xml del C:\Windows\WinSxS\pending.xml
[NOTE – Do remember to alter the drive letter “D:” with the drive letter that contains the ‘Windows’ folder]
Now, close the Command Prompt screen and reboot your computer.
If you still can’t start your computer normally, follow these steps –
a. Open the Command Prompt from the Windows Recovery Environment.
b. Execute these commands. (Change the drive letter ‘d:’ according to where you have found the Windows folder.)
chkdsk /f C: sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=D:\windows dism /image:C:\ /cleanup-image /restorehealth
DISM error 1009 message won’t appear further.
Fix 2 – Restore registry from a backup
You can restore the registry from a backup stored in the ‘Regback’ folder.
1. Boot the system to Windows RE following the force-shutdown method mentioned in Fix 1.
2. Then, navigate this way to open the Command Prompt screen-
Advanced options > Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Command Prompt
3. In the Command Prompt screen, navigate to the drive that contains the Windows folder (follow steps 11- 13 of the Fix 1. The ‘D:’ drive as an example)
4. You have to execute these three steps to create the backup.
cd \windows\system32\config md backup copy *.* backup
8. Now, copy-paste these below mentioned commands and hit Enter after each of them to copy registry backup from Regback directory.
cd regback DIR
Now, you have two options here. Act according to the situation-
CASE 1: In the list of files, carefully check if there is any file that contains 0 bytes in its size. If this is the case, the registry backup is also corrupt. You have to follow other solutions to fix this problem.
CASE 2: If all the files have a non-zero size, go for the next step.
9. To copy the backup execute this particular command.
copy *.*..
When you are prompted, press ‘A‘ to overwrite all the files in the destination.
After copying the files, close the terminal. Restart your computer normally and boot to Windows normally.
NOTE–
If you face any difficulty starting up your computer normally, follow these steps –
a. Open the Command Prompt from the Windows Recovery Environment.
b. Execute these commands.
chkdsk /f D: sfc /scannow /offbootdir=D:\ /offwindir=D:\windows dism /image:D:\ /cleanup-image /restorehealth
This should have fixed your problem.
Fix 3 – Use the System Restore function
If nothing so far has worked out for you, try restoring the system back to the state when everything was working fine.
1. Follow the instructions of force-shutdown to open up the Windows RE.
2. When the Automatic Repair settings window appears, click on “Advanced options“.
3. Once the Choose an option‘ window opens up, you have to click on “Troubleshoot“.
4. In the Troubleshooting window, click on “Advanced options“.
5. In the Advanced options window, click on “System Restore“.
System Restore will restore your system to a particular restore point.
6. In the System Restore screen, click on “Next“.
7. Choose the restore point from the list of available restore points and then click on “Next“.
8. Click on “Finish” to finish the process.
Your computer will restart and the restoring process will commence.
once you have restored your system to a former state, you won’t receive the error again.