Fix: The Dependency Service or Group Failed to Start
A pretty well-known Windows issue, pretty much because of the sheer number of people who were and still continue to be affected by it, is one where the affected user’s access to the internet becomes entirely non-existent and a message that reads “The dependency service or group failed to start” is displayed in their Network & Sharing Center. This issue first affected Windows 7 users but, since then, has also been found on other versions of the Windows Operating System.
Users affected by this issue become incapable of connecting to the internet on any and all networks regardless of whether they try to connect wirelessly or via an Ethernet cable. Any attempts to troubleshoot this problem from the Network & Sharing Center result in failure and yet another message which reads “The Diagnostic Policy Service is not running”.
The Diagnostic Policy Service is a Windows service that should start running as soon as your computer boots up. However, when affected users try to start the Diagnostic Policy Service by launching services.msc, they receive an error message stating “Windows could not start the Diagnostic Policy Service on Local Computer; Error 5: Access is denied”. This error message, ladies and gentlemen, is the true source of this entire problem. If you are suffering from this problem, you are in this predicament because localservice and networkservice have, for some reason, been removed from your administrator group and your user account no longer has the access level necessary to start the Diagnostic Policy Service upon startup.
To solve this issue, you need to simply:
Open the Start Menu. Search for cmd and right-click on the search result of the exact same name, Click on Run as administrator. This will launch a Command Prompt that has administrative privileges.
If you are using Windows 8 or 10, then Hold the Windows Key and Press X. Choose Command Prompt (Admin).
Type the following command into the elevated Command Prompt and press Enter:
net localgroup administrators localservice /add
Type the following command into the elevated Command Prompt and press Enter:
net localgroup administrators networkservice /add
Type exit into the elevated Command Prompt and press Enter to close the Command Prompt. Restart your computer.
As soon as your computer reboots, you should no longer suffer from this problem you should be able to easily access the internet through any network of your choice, both wirelessly and through a wired connection.
Selecting the Normal Startup Configuration
Windows has many options to startup your computer. One such way is to start it up while loading only the absolutely necessary services and applications. It is possible that your computer has been configured to not load a certain driver or service due to which the error is triggered. Therefore, in this step, we will be selecting the normal startup configuration. For that:
- Press “Windows” + “R” keys simultaneously to open the Run prompt.
Opening Run Prompt - Type in “msconfig” and press “Enter“.
Typing in msconfig and pressing enter - Click on the “General” tab and check the “Normal Startup” circle.
Checking the Normal Startup Option - Click on the “Apply” option and then on “OK“.
- Click on the “Restart” option to reboot into the normal mode.
- Check to see if the issue persists.
Dear Kevin – thank you so much for this insight and fix. Discovering this has saved me from a major amount of work rebuilding my system. For some reason I lost all network connectivity while making adjustments in an attempt to get a Bluetooth USB adapter working on Windows 10. sfc /scannow reported no problems and the system restore to the point before I made changes failed. I can’t imagine how you managed to discover this fix – it must have involved a lot of skill and hard work! – Martin..