How can I repair WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) service?

QUESTION

How to repair WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) service?

ANSWER

Microsoft WMI diagnostic tool

If the activation of Capture One is not going smoothly, this could happen due to a damaged WMI service.   The activation routine could fail if the WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) service does not respond.  This would happen if the operating system is not configured properly.

The WMI is a service application used to ask the operating system to perform the tasks (including low-level ones asking for a hard drive serial number). If it does not function correctly, the activation process will not be able to gather the hard disk serial number and the activation process will fail.

Accessing the WMI Logs

First of all, locate the event log by launching the Control Panel. Select System and Security, then navigate to Administrative Tools.

Once the administrative window appears, you will see something similar as in the image below.  Double-click on the Event Viewer item.

In the event log's left pane, select Windows Logs -> System. Right-click and select Clear Log. When the event log appears, right-click on the System Icon as shown in the image below and select the Clear all Events menu item. 

Clear the Logs

Once you have clicked on the Clear all Events, a screen similar to the one shown below appears asking whether you want to save the event log.  Unless you have a specific reason, select No. Otherwise, save the log file in the destination of your choice. 

Once the event log is cleared, launch Capture One and try to perform the activation routine again.  Once you have done this, examine the event log again and look for an error message mentioning DCOM. If this error message appears, Capture One is unable to contact the WMI service. This means the Windows operating system on this computer must be reinstalled.

Suggestions for the OS reinstall

It would be impossible to cover all the aspects of how to solve this malfunction of the operating system. Anyway, the key points are provided below.

First of all, make sure that the WMI service starts and that the recovery options are set up correctly. To do this, open the Administrative Tools window as described earlier, but this time double-click the Services Icon. 

Locate the service Windows Management Instrumentation, right-click on the service, and select the menu item Properties,

In the General tab, make sure that the service status is Running. If not, press the Start button.

Make sure that the startup type is set to Automatic. If not, change it. Then navigate to the Recovery tab and make sure that the required options are set to Restart the Service as shown in the image below.

Another possible reason for the activation error denotes that the files for the service have become damaged. To fix this problem, you will need to delete the damaged files, but you have to stop the WMI service before that.

Open the Administrative Tools window as described earlier and double-click on the Services icon.  Locate the service Windows Management Instrumentation and right-click on it. Select the menu item Properties. Press the Stop button and wait for the service and related services to shut down.  Once the service is stopped, locate the folder C:\WINDOWS\System32\wbem\Repository and delete its contents. Once the files are deleted, reboot the computer as this will force the recreation of the files necessary for the service.

Once the computer finished rebooting, please try to perform the activation again. 

If neither of the above solutions is successful, then it is worth reinstalling the operating system from the Microsoft installation medium. Once that is done, try to activate the software without installing firewalls and antivirus software.