Windows 8 apps won't work on laptop

bdelves

New Member
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Hi there everybody. Loaded Windows 8 onto my daughters laptop just before Christmas. Everything worked great. Suddenly around mid January, most of the apps stopped working. The computer is connected to the internet. If I go to the desktop, I can open Google Chrome or IE and browse no problem. If I run IE from the tile, it starts and works. However, I am having the following problems:

- Cannot connect to the store
- Cannot connect to Bing sports
- Windows Defender cannot update virus definitions
- Windows tries checking for updates, but it doesn't actually find any.


So I did a bit of searching to try and figure out how to update windows defender. I found this post
How-to: Force Windows Defender Updates « Everything Express
I followed all the steps and shutdown “Antimalware Service Executable". I tried updating Windows. No luck. But I went back to the tile screen and tried the store and bind sports and they work no problem. In my little pea brain, this seems to be some sort of issue with windows defender. Any idea what the proper fix would be? Thanks.
Brian
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
can you think back to what was installed around that time?

video driver is a common culprit. so is installing a third-party antivirus or firewall. also, were any changes made to the router or network configuration? is this laptop able to connect to another network and have these apps/Windows Defender function properly?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
Ahhh. Good question. I was assuming it was a software issue. We did actually change our modem. We upgraded our internet speed and our isp sent us a new modem. It is a Cisco Model DPC3825 3.0 gateway (modem and router). Is there something in the modem or router setting I should be looking for? When I set it up, it seemed to jive with everything so I assumed it was working correctly.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
if there were no changes made to the laptop since the beginning of January (no installation of new drivers, no installation of software, no changes to configuration settings for firewalls, software, drivers, etc.), that rules out that something installed or changed borked the connectivity. changes to the laptop itself is the first thing you always investigate first.

this is where system restore checkpoints come in handy. It is recommended that you create a restore point before installing new software or making any major changes to your computer. As a restore point is a representation of a stored state of your computer's system files, and you can use a restore point to restore your computer's system files to an earlier point in time, often times when you install new software you’re given the choice to create a point but if not you can do one manually as well. I know, me personally, I can be lazy myself when it comes to creating a checkpoint before I jump in and install something right away. But I always create checkpoints before I install really major software or drivers. That way, it's very easy to rollback to the previous state and to mentally keep track of what's installed.

once we rule out software changes, then we can start looking at things like your new router/modem and how the network is configured.

the easiest way to rule your network difficulties out is to see if this laptop can fully work on any other network. a school's network. a library. a coffee shop with wifi. if windows store, defender, etc. works fine with another network, then you know it's something to do with your own network configuration, outside of the PC itself. if it doesn't work on another network either, then you can start examining this new router/modem.

if you have another Windows 8 PC that works perfectly fine in your network, then you know it's not the network configuration. which would bring you back to the laptop.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
However, I am having the following problems:

- Cannot connect to the store
- Cannot connect to Bing sports
- Windows Defender cannot update virus definitions
- Windows tries checking for updates, but it doesn't actually find any.
Silly question perhaps, but can you connect to www.microsoft.com ?

I had a strange problem with my router once whereby some websites (eg. Facebook) wouldn't work either on my laptop or my smartphone, but other websites would. I'm not entirely sure what the cause was; in the end I think I switched the router off for a while, and when I switched it on again, it worked.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1, 10
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