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By mistake, I imported a ".reg" file that describes an alias for one of the groups (Remote Desktop Users) into the "HKLM\SAM\SAM\" branch of registry, with the file being in a different language from what my OS has all while it was unnecessary in the fisrt place as I already had the group like that anyway.

As a result, the whole thing with aliases got corrupted and I can no longer see any groups in lusrmgr.msc's "Groups" folder. But what is is much worse is that I now can not create/add a new user account as it immediately causes Windows 10 Pro to crash and restart with error -1073740940 (c0000374) in lsass.exe from wherever I try to create a new user.

Obviously, things like "sfc /scannow" and "dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth" do not restore such things at all.

Is there a way to force Windows 10 Pro to rebuild the groups thing? Or can I just delete "HKLM\SAM\SAM" branch altogether and it will force Windows 10 to redo the groups?

Thanks in advance.

DDRRSS
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  • Sounds like it's time to restore from backup. – I say Reinstate Monica May 05 '19 at 13:00
  • Backup, sadly, is itself new enough, so it would not help. If nothing else helps, can I reinstall Windows 10 Pro over itself keeping all of the software, but resetting SAM/LSA rights/permissions/policies? Basically, I only want to redo users/groups thing. – DDRRSS May 05 '19 at 15:30
  • The situation has gotten even worse as I was already unable to open any user management consoles properly any more. But I ended up deleting a presumably corrupt user account manually via registry and it has helped: I am now able to create new users. I am still not seeing any groups in the corresponding folder of `lusrmgr.msc`, though. It is too bad but I really do not want to reinstall the OS, so the only thing I have is the hope that I will manage without reboots since now. – DDRRSS May 05 '19 at 22:58
  • @DDRRSS What did you do to fix it? Did you have to reinstall? – AndrewRalon Nov 04 '20 at 22:28
  • Since the last update where I was able to delete the corrupting user and was able to add more users again but was still unable to see any groups, it seems that the issue is gone by now due to Windows 10 Pro being updated from 1903 to 1909 and to 2004 by now -- this process apparently recreates/updates the group thing. However, if I needed to solve the issue not waiting for the OS updates, I imagine I would have to reinstall it. Or I could fix it by editing registry via a script (too many places to fix manually) but I do not know where anyway. – DDRRSS Nov 06 '20 at 05:15

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