DISM gives Error 11

Question

I have been running MS systems since you needed to 5-1/4' floppies to boot them. I know the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit systems. This one has me a bit frazzled.
When I run Dism.exe, I consistently get the following error:
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.3.9600.17031
Error: 11
You cannot service a running 64-bit operating system with a 32-bit version of DISM.
Please use the version of DISM that corresponds to your computer's architecture.
The DISM log file can be found at C:\WINDOWS\Logs\DISM\dism.log
It's obvious that the command that's loading is the 32-bit version. I scanned the hard drive and found several versions of DISM.exe. Each time I get the same error, regardless of which DISM.exe I execute. Each time I was in an "elevated" cmd environment.
I even tried going into Powershell and running it. Same problem. I have checked the path, just to be sure. sysWOW64 appears before system32 in the path variable.  I have tried running dism.exe from each individual location on the drive, just to make sure
the "local" command is/was being executed. Same error.
The reason for this is that sfc /scannow found some corrupted files it could not repair. I wanted to run the DISM command, then rerun the sfc command.
Where can I find the 64-bit version of dism.exe? It should be on the hard drive somewhere or at least you would think so.
I also tried running Powershell and the Repair-WindowsImage -Online -RestoreHealth.  It failed with a similar error.
Outside of these commands, I will likely have to restore Windows 8.1 and start over.
What prompted all this was the laptop started doing some flaky things. For example, when you try to open a cmd environment, the system would just stall and restart explorer.exe after a few minutes. This happened repeatedly. I was finally able to get a cmd
environment to open from the directory where the command is located. After that, it worked flawlessly. Similar things were happening trying to run other commands/features. This all started after installation of one of the MS security patches.
At this point, wiping the system and starting with a clean slate may be the best option.
Oh - system running Windows 8.1, latest patches. HP Laptop 750GB HD, 6GB RAM, i3 processor.
Bob
Bob C., OCP

Answer 1

Okay... don't take this wrong, but "I didn't fall off the truck yesterday"!  I will admit that I had not tried the solution you suggested, but I do know how to open a command environment, etc. I tried your suggestion and that's when I got
the message below - "Access denied".
I think I have found the root cause of this problem:
I started perusing the system in general. I checked everything from A to Z. Then, it hit me when I got an error message "Access Denied..." message.
I checked my access to the system and found that my account (not the System Administrator account) had been changed from an Administrator to a Standard User. That's easy enough to fix. WRONG! I logged in as the Administrator and found that I could no longer
change an account from a Standard to an Administrator role. How this happened, I do not know. I have not gotten any viruses or malware - I check every week with Norton, then Malwarebytes. I know some things can get by one product, but there is a slim chance
that it would get by two products. But, I digress...
I checked the Administrator access to the suspect folders. The Administrator account has NO access to the Windows folder. I have full access to the "C" drive, but ZERO access almost all the subsequent folders. Yes, I can list folder contents, etc.
But, I cannot change anything. For example, the c:\windows folder is set to Read Only. Just for grins, I tried to change it... wouldn't allow it.
I did find that the only account that has FULL access to everything is the TrustedInstaller account. Sounds suspicious...
Okay, while still logged in as Administrator, I went to Control Panel>User Accounts>Manage Another Account and tried to change my "usual" account from a Standard User to an Administrator User. It won't let me, as the Administrator Role/User
is greyed out. Mind you, this is from the Administrator account to another user.
I found several instances of this on the internet. I have tried the "fixes" I found, but thus far it has been a "no go." I am beginning to think the only way out of this is a system refresh, i.e., backup all my files and re-install the
OS.
I am going to give this one final shot from a "clean boot" with network access. If that doesn't work, I am looking at a backup and reload.
Any ideas/suggestions will apprecisted.
Bob
Bob C., OCP