Windows runs a number of services in the background. You can find these background services with their current status in Services window (Press Windows + R, type services.msc and hit Enter). These services are also seen in a separate tab, under the hood of System Configuration Utility (commonly known as msconfig).
Today, I came around a weird issue for the background services running in the Services window. Against each service, the status says “Failed to Read Description. Error Code 2″. Have a look at the following screenshot:
Since there is error code 2, it can be concluded that background services files were missing from the system. The first and foremost thing I did after seeing the error, I just checked the necessary files for the services. So it was everything OK with my system, the files were there
So I ran the System File Checker to find out and fix possible corruption and rebooted it. But there was no difference in the situation, services still showing the same error.
Now, I started by troubleshooting steps in another direction, and finally ended up all this mess with the following solution.
Failed To Read Description, Error Code 2
1. Press Windows Key + R combination, type put Regedt32.exe in Run dialog box and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.
2. Navigate to the following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\MUI
3. Now right click on the MUI key and select New -> Key. Name the newly created key as StringCacheSettings.
In the right pane of this newly created key, create a new DWORD value, name it as StringCacheGeneration. Double click this newly created DWORD to modify its Value data:
4. In the above-shown box, type the Value data as 38b. Make sure you have selected Hexadecimal base here. Click OK. You may now close the Registry Editor and reboot to get it fixed up.
I hope this helps!
Related: An unexpected error occurred in Network Connections Properties.
