Windows 7: Does sfc /scannow really help?

I've been desktop support for over 10 years in large corporations 10k+ employees. never once did I had a good experience sfc /scannow fixing anything.

anybody out there find it help resolved your problem? if so, please list your problem and if sfc /scannow really fixed it.

thanks

Yes, it can work or show what files that are bad.

i've not seen it show anything. all i see is a progress bar, once it complete, it just close the progress bar screen. does it create a log file somewhere?

Yes it does create a log. Can't remember where. If you run it from a command prompt window (not the run command) it should tell you where it saves the log.

Also I had a situation just last week where the theme.dll files in Win 7 got corrupted and sfc /scannow found it and replaced them fixing my problems.

Check out option two here ....

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

i don't see an option to save to log file

C:\>sfc /scannow ?
Microsoft(R) Windows XP Windows File Checker Version 5.1
(C) 1999-2000 Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved
Scans all protected system files and replaces incorrect versions with correct Mi
crosoft versions.
SFC [/SCANNOW] [/SCANONCE] [/SCANBOOT] [/REVERT] [/PURGECACHE] [/CACHESIZE=x]

/SCANNOW Scans all protected system files immediately.
/SCANONCE Scans all protected system files once at the next boot.
/SCANBOOT Scans all protected system files at every boot.
/REVERT Return scan to default setting.
/PURGECACHE Purges the file cache.
/CACHESIZE=x Sets the file cache size.
C:\>

May be this will help.

i've seen adviced on this forum to run sfc /scannow, and that's it. no other detail and to look at the log file nor next action. so the user assume that sfc /scannow is suppose to resolve things...but if you're telling me to llook at the log file to for clues of what could be the problem, then that's another step for the trained eyes.

The SFC / SCANNOW does actually perform some repairs automatically the point of the log file is to inform you of what was repaired so as to possibly prevent a future recurrence of the same issue and also to allow you to take further action on those files which for some reason could not be automatically repaired. If SFC has files that it cannot repair then this will be clearly noted in the exit message.

Also keep in mind that you should not run sfc /scannow just for the heck of it.
Only run it if you are actually having problems.

Yeah,, log searching can be a strain for the uninitiated.

Try this

Copy the code and paste to notepad and save as whatever.cmd then run it

This the location of the log file...

%windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log