Windows Update broke itself?

[Tunnelcat]

Anybody run into this one? Yesterday, Tuesday afternoon (2/12), I manually ran Windows Update and several critical XP updates were installed without any problems, including one for IE7. The computer then worked fine the rest of the day, or so I thought.

The next day, after an overnight reboot, I decided to go back to Windows Update and check on other optional updates that might be available for other applications.

Well, I get to the initial authentication screen and IE7 freezes up! I have to use ctrl/alt/del to quit the program and it hesitates for a minute before the \"This program is not responding\" window comes up and I click on \"end process\".

I try AGAIN and the same thing happens. @#*$^% Microsoft! I can't get into Windows Update without locking up IE7! Has anybody else had this happen?

[captain_twinkie]

I havnt seen it do it exactly like that, but updates crap out on alot of people. Just do a system restore and redo the updates.

[Top Wop]

Same thing happened to me, but in Vista, and it was with an update released in November. They had made WU so complicated that attempting to fix it made me feel like some sort of forensic scientist. Cryptic error codes one after another, and after I googled them, id get a series of command lines to perform. Well, it solves the problem, but then I get another cryptic code, and it was the one that basically meant \"I have no fsking clue why im broke and you are out of luck. Sorry and have a nice day!\".

And that was enough for me to never touch Vista in my life ever again, amongst many other things that were wrong and which Microsoft is admitting to some of them.

[Tunnelcat]

I've almost never had system restore work as indended. Invariably it screws up something and it take hours to repair the problem. \"F\"ing Microsoft!

Has anybody been able to go BACK into WU after last Tuesday's recent update? If you haven't, give it a try and see what happens. I'm curious if it's just my machine or a larger Microsoft problem.

I managed to get back in on Wednesday by going thru Microsoft's TechNet Security Center site that had a different link for WU than what IE7 tried to go to. It had no history of my previous updates and it took over an hour to scan and find all needed updates.

This update bragged that it would detect and install updates for ALL Microsoft software. This appears to be a new feature of WU, to update more than just the OS.

It seemed to work and even detected Office updates that I hadn't done yet. So far everything seems to work, but I haven't tried WU via IE7 yet. I'll probably wait until next month.

[Krom]

Working just fine here (automatic updates installed a couple days ago). It's just your computer.

[Tunnelcat]

Did you try going back into WU again AFTER Tuesday's update was completed?

[Krom]

Yeah, I installed a driver update about 30 minutes ago from it.

[fliptw]

try this:

regsvr32 -u %SYSTEMROOT%\\system32\\wuweb.dll

and then hit WU again.

[Foil]

Running Vista on two machines at home, and XP-Pro x64 at work... no problems here.

[Top Wop]

If you want to reverse an update, youre supposed to uninstall that update from add-remove programs. Dont use system restore to reverse updates. In fact, ive never used system restore for anything. If something needs to be fixed, I do it myself, which means sticking the XP cd at bootup and selecting a repair install.

If you haven't done so already, id try that now.

[Warlock]

WSUS FTW

[Krom]

If you want to reverse an update, youre supposed to uninstall that update from add-remove programs. Dont use system restore to reverse updates. In fact, ive never used system restore for anything. If something needs to be fixed, I do it myself, which means sticking the XP cd at bootup and selecting a repair install.

If you haven't done so already, id try that now.

Obviously you have never attempted this or you would know that doing a repair install on Windows XP after IE7 has been installed permanently breaks IE and the only way to fix it is either to completely format and reinstall or to trigger the IE7 uninstall routines manually from the recovery console...

[TechPro]

If you want to reverse an update, youre supposed to uninstall that update from add-remove programs. Dont use system restore to reverse updates. In fact, ive never used system restore for anything. If something needs to be fixed, I do it myself, which means sticking the XP cd at bootup and selecting a repair install.

If you haven't done so already, id try that now.

Obviously you have never attempted this or you would know that doing a repair install on Windows XP after IE7 has been installed permanently breaks IE and the only way to fix it is either to completely format and reinstall or to trigger the IE7 uninstall routines manually from the recovery console...

Very True.

[AceCombat]

definately true

[Top Wop]

Wow I never knew that. Looks like IE7 will never touch my machine.

[Tunnelcat]

try this:

regsvr32 -u %SYSTEMROOT%\\system32\\wuweb.dll

and then hit WU again.

What happens when you run this?

Right now the computer's using the muweb.dll that directs it to Microsoft Update, not Windows Update. The muweb.dll was apparently installed when I loaded a new Active X control from the Microsoft TechNet site. Both wuweb.dll and muweb.dll are in the system 32 directory now.

My laptop is still using the wuweb.dll and doesn't even have the muweb.dll entry. I'm assuming that's the case since that computer has never been to Microsoft Update and that Active X control has never been installed. Windows Update has always worked fine on this laptop with no problems, even recently. Go figure.

[Krom]

That command uninstalls the windows update activex control, so the next time you visit windows update IE will have to reinstall it. 99% of the time doing that will fix it if it is broken.

[Tunnelcat]

I had a suspicion that's what it would do, but I wanted to make sure. Thanks. I gather this command would work to eliminate the muweb.dll as well if you substituted it in the string in place of the wuweb.dll?

[Krom]

Yup.