Windows Update Hell

I was given a laptop to troubleshoot the old XP Unmountable Boot Volume error. That took all of about 5 minutes.

Being a good citizen, I then checked the thing out for other issues-- ran Spybot, AdAware, updated AVG to 7.5 for them. Then I went to Windows Update to find 50 critical updates pending. Yes, that's right, they NEVER did any updates, EVER. It's XP Home SP2 (I think I actually did the SP2 manually for them at a previous "help" session, without checking WU). Anyway:

Updates are downloaded apparently successfully, but then:
Simply says "Updates were unable to be successfully installed"
Manual updates are successfully installed (but who wants to sit through 50 of them???)
No error codes are returned
Updates fail singly or in multiples

OS is legitimate Dell OEM XP Home
Windows Firewall is off
Time and Date is correct
IE temp files cleared
Ran CCleaner (latest)
Ran Dial-a-Fix, even let it initialize update history
Disabled potentially conflicting apps: Big Fix and Trojan Hunter Guard(?)

Any ideas? Or point me to a thread, but I have searched here and believe I have checked them all already.

 

Try autopatcher available here at mg's.

 

I looked at that, but a 338MB download and a 29MB update seemed like admitting defeat and just "automating" manual updates rather than finding a solution for both the present issue, and going forward.

 

Try this: click Start > Run type cmd press Enter. Type sfc /purgecache and let that do it's thing. Grab your XP CD and type sfc /scannow and insert the CD when prompted.....

 

Tried it. But it just scanned, finished, and never asked for the CD.

 

Try Belarc Advisor.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Belarc_Advisor_d1385.html :major

Scroll down the page until you come across Installed Microsoft Hotfixes

Look through these and you may find some listed as "Re-install".
Uninstall these, download them again and re-install.
Restart Belarc Advisor and see if they took again.

This might save you downloading the 50+ Critical updates again.
Hope fully some of them worked the first time around. Bazza

 

Apparently, according to Belarc, several updates have indeed been done successfully in the past-- but there are currently 50 pending that "the problem" is preventing.

None listed in Belarc are on the current list WU is downloading but failing to install.

None in Belarc are marked as failing verification. Only one says lacks data to allow verification.

Belarc lists 4 I did manually yesterday as verified.

Forgot to mention earlier that after install fails, when going to the WU review update history, nothing's there-- it says no updates have ever been installed.

 

Damn, it looks like the 50 are ready to go, if only.......... :cry

Check out these google links for "Updates were unable to be successfully installed"

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&...as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images

Hopefully something there to get you to the right solution.
Let us know how you go. Bazza

 

I did exactly that first (see my sig) before posting this thread.

But thanks for the other suggestions.

 

My friend's computer had this very same problem. I spent days trying to figure it out. I even restored it back to factory settings but there was something in there that prevented the updates from installing. The only solution I found was to completely format the drive and reinstall the OS. Through, I guess you don't really have that option. If you do find a way to fix yet, please post back. I'd love to know how I could have fixed that.

 

Well, there are two schools of thought here: One that says there must be a solution, and the other that asks why take a week to find the former when you can just reformat and reinstall in about two hours. But I must like a challenge, I guess.:foolish

 

Interesting development. I found this:

http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...&tid=a90738f9-af9c-46db-9598-0a719d97794a&p=1

and tried the large registry merge. Didn't seem to help. So then I snooped around in Windows/Software Distribution, and randomly did 2 updates manually by running update.exe in the /Download subfolders. Then, at some later point, I did a shutdown, and it suddenly did the old "Hey, wait, we have 48 updates to install first before we shut down", so I let it. When it came back up, lo and behold, there was a Windows update shield icon in the system tray, announcing updates are ready for my computer. So before doing that, I check Help & Support -> Windows Update -> Custom to see what's there. The only thing in the queue is WGA Notification and IE7. So then I go even one further, and deselect IE7 and see if WU will install WGA Notify-- it does. I hate this sh*t.

 

Doug,

Was there any spyware on the system when you got it?

Steve

 

None I know of. I updated and ran AVG, SpyBot and AdAware prior to WU with nothing of note reported.

 

I would run this and try update again. http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=74338

Steve

 

Evidence suggests L2MFix has already been run on this particular machine. I may just try the update cited and see what if anything it improves. For now it's a wait-and-see as to how this machine handles the next available update offered.

 

OK.

Steve

 

Well, I ran it, but the log seems a bit inconclusive. It's like the app implies it found and fixed something whether it actually did or not.

 

Still didn't fix the update issue?

Steve

 

Well, other than what's described in #12 above, I don't know. Either no new updates have been offered, of the laptop has been asleep if any have. At this point, it appears updates chosen to install within WU will indeed install. I'm waiting on another to be offered, as I'm on the fence as to whether to let it download IE7-- the only update currently left in the queue. I usually use Moz/Firefox, except at work, where I have IE7 and curse it regularly.

 

I see. IE7 is a little different.

It looks like from the log that it repaired the registry which should help.

It won't be long before another update so you can test it.

Steve

 

I would have hoped the log would have been a bit more verbose about what actually transpired. I did note there was a hosts.bak file present, which had a bunch of bad URLs listed 127.0.0.1, appraently from some prior malware resisting effort.

 

It wouldn't hurt to go thru the steps in malware if you have the time.

Steve

 

That's an option, but my interest in this machine is such that whatever I take the time to fix now will surely be broken again in the future. I can clean up malware until the cows come home, but can't prevent the laptop's owner from becoming reinfected after I return it to them, and my hours on it aren't billable. My experience and intuition at this point tell me that the machine is clean, and whatever's plagueing/plagued WU is a remnant of resolved earlier issues. Thanks for the input.