"Apps" all crashing

[Brent212]

Only had the Surface Pro 2 for 5 days, and today any time I try opening a "metro" app, it crashes immediately after showing the startup logo. I'm guessing it has to do with the fact that I recently changed the owner of C:\Program Files\WindowsApps from TrustedInstaller to the Administrators group. I tried changing it back, but the apps still crash.

This ridiculousness, along with a wifi speed issue (can't connect to network with greater than 2 Mbps speed), and a failing windows update have led me to request an exchange from Microsoft. Hoping the wifi issue is just faulty hardware, as exhaustive searching seems to indicate (some people don't have the problem, some do and nothing resolves it). If the new unit fixes that, then I can resist messing with the folder permissions and hopefully avoid this crashing app garbage, and hopefully it'll be worth keeping, because I really want to like this thing.

 

[tarrant64]

So...was there a question here or just a rant?

 

[revmike]

Sounds like a rant to me.

 

[CrippsCorner]

 

[tarrant64]

Lol.

 

[Brent212]

Yeah, just ranting, and sort of half hoping someone had any insight as to why the apps started crashing (or how to fix it).

 

[tarrant64]

Yeah, just ranting, and sort of half hoping someone had any insight as to why the apps started crashing (or how to fix it).

Well the mostly rant you posted didn't give us a lot to go on with the crashing apps other than you messed with some permissions and something broke. Thought it was pretty clear where to start.

With that said - you could have tried a system refresh to see if that resolved your issues. Sounds like you have mostly software problems, which doesn't necessarily mean you needed an exchanged unit. However, it seems you already initiated an exchange so there might not be any sense in helping to fix a problem if you're just swapping the unit out.

 

[Brent212]

Not sure what additional details I could give. I changed the owner of " C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" from TrustedInstaller to the Administrators group (set it to recursively change owner for all sub-directories+files). All "metro" style apps went from working fine to crashing as soon as they startup. Changed the owner back to TrustedInstaller, but it didn't fix it.

I'll try using system restore.

 

[CreativeLemming]

Out of interest (not that I have any advice that may fix this but just to close the loop), why were you messing around with permissions and removing the trustedinstaller permissions in the first place? From what I understand, even administrator has lower rights than TI so not surprised that something would go wrong if you did this then tried to revert the changes.

 

[Brent212]

Because I wanted to see what was in the WindowsApps directory. I'm one of those people who's never gotten used to the "are you sure you want to do this? you'll need admin rights to it" messages that started popping up everytime you breath wrong after XP.

Guides like this never gave me problems before. Guess I might have to give in a stop trying to have full control of my OS. Probably less hassle.

 

[revmike]

Because I wanted to see what was in the WindowsApps directory. I'm one of those people who's never gotten used to the "are you sure you want to do this? you'll need admin rights to it" messages that started popping up everytime you breath wrong after XP.

Guides like this never gave me problems before. Guess I might have to give in a stop trying to have full control of my OS. Probably less hassle.

Some people are always trying to ice skate up hill and when they slip and fall and break something they want to blame the skates.

 

[Brent212]