If WMI is broken, how can it be fixed? The only Microsoft-endorsed way to repair WMI is to reinstall Windows. But for most of us, that isn’t a practical approach. Another method is to force WMI to repair itself. Of all the WMI repair techniques I’ve seen, this five-step approach seems to work the best. (However, it may not work on all systems.)

1. At the command line, type net stop winmgmt. You may get a warning that other services need to be stopped as well; type Y and continue.
2. Open Explorer and go to %SystemRoot%System32WBEMRepository.
3. Delete that folder and everything in it.
4. Reboot the system normally.
5. On the next login, open a command prompt and type the following commands in this order:
winmgmt /clearadap
winmgmt /kill
winmgmt /unregserver
winmgmt /regserver
winmgmt /resyncperf

This procedure will force the WINMGMT service to re-register itself as well, although, if WMI is damaged, re-registering can be a problem. If this approach does not work, an in-place upgrade (i.e., a reinstall) might be required.