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I did a routine "scan now" with System File Checker (SFC) which is part of Windows Resource Protection. It found corrupt files, some of which it said it couldn't fix. I then ran DISM.exe (Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool), with the instructions shown, and it corrected the problems. Then, as a double-check, I ran SFC once more, to confirm everything's OK.
This is a handy routine to make note of, and to perform periodically, to keep your system in good operating condition. And it's a lot more convenient than hauling the box away to a shop for an expensive check-up.
Additional Note:
The Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool also works in Win-7, but without the "/RestoreHealth" option. The Windows 7 version of it isn't quite as sophisticated as that in Windows 8. But it will restore your system's image just as well.
Periodically in here, I do a little rant about Mighty Microsoft, and give them a bit of static over their Windows 8.1, and I really ought to clarify all that for the benefit of anyone who hasn't been following all this over the past several years.
I was one of the ten million who jumped at the chance to download and test Windows 7 during its Beta phase, before actual public release, and I loved it from day one. Most of us did. And when Windows 8 came along, using basically the same chassis, power plant, and transmission as we'd become familiar with in Windows 7, many of us also jumped at the chance to test it. And in a certain sense, I'm still testing Windows 8. And what have I found?
I've found that Windows 8 can and does happily run programs as old as those intended for use with Windows XP. Programs like Arcsoft's PhotoStudio 5.5 which came out in 2003, long before Windows 8 was even a gleam in Daddy's eye. I've found that it doesn't need any modifications to its startup or reboot or shutdown procedures, if you've bothered to actually "read the directions", but it will happily accept and obey desktop shortcuts for those functions, if you write them correctly for its C:\Windows\System32 (I've got 32-bit Windows) and there's an instruction for that, if you Google the web for it.
And, as you've no doubt noticed from my screenshots on here, Windows 8 also accepts other modifications such as those provided by 8GadgetPack which will restore those much-loved Desktop Gadgets similar to those in Windows 7, but with an even wider variety of gadget choices. There's even been a program made in Germany called AeroGlass8 which restores the full transparency to the window-frames and the Taskbar, etc., but after testing that one for a while, I found that even though it works well, meaning without problems, nevertheless it is resource-intensive, and tends to slow down your system's responses just a little. So I removed it again, because, as Microsoft itself concluded while designing Windows 8, it isn't terribly essential to the performance nor the aesthetics of this system. And it slows it down because it utilizes most of the same Registry items as those used by Windows 7, and in doing so, it re-routes some actions that are 'streamlined' in Windows 8 - so in effect, it's reverting parts of the Registry back to a Windows 7 mode, and that's why it slows down.
I keep saying here that I wish Microsoft would just stop nagging me to upgrade my Windows 8 to the newer Windows 8.1, and there's a very simple reason for my feeling that way. I'm familiar with Windows 8, it does everything I ask of it,
including accepting and running some of these third-party add-ons that I'm so fond of, and I honestly don't feel the least deprived by not having its upgrade to version 8.1. My trusty old Windows 8 with its modifications does everything for me that I could be doing with Windows 8.1, and then some. So I'm reluctant to scrap it for something I'd have to begin all over again to customize. In other words - you guessed it - "If it works, don't fix it!"
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