DescentBB

Had to deal with that POS today, when a co-worker's updater screwed up. Windows 7 is such a slow bloated piece of malware.

The update should be renamed "DESTROYER". When it screws up, it basically takes out a few hours of your morning. I'm going to try to change everyone's computer to linux and rid the office of this fake OS.

User error; replace user and press any key when ready.

I've not had any issue with Win 7. Vista sucks badly.

It turns out the issue was caused by the virus scanner.... lol. That's funny, like a snake eating its tail.

That's actually not uncommon with third-party AV products. It's one of the reasons I use MS's own Security Essentials.

Given your penchant for updating thread titles: "Windows 7 Virus Scanner is a piece of crap" ?

Oh yeah? I'm with Issac. I fortunately decided to update my laptop FIRST today (the computer that is the least important of my 3 Windows 7 computers) and voila!, the damn mouse quits working after the reboot. So I had to resort to the touchpad *&$%#&$*! to start surfing for a "solution". It turns out that one of those updates (which one I don't know) turned off 3 of my USB host controllers. Three of them had nice little yellow triangles of death stamped on them in the Device Manager and an error code 219 was thrown in the Event Log.

So after wasting most of my morning trying to find out what that POS did wrong, I found the issue. It's called "The Windows 7 to SP1 USB Driver Bug". And guess what, all of my Windows 7 systems were bought BEFORE SP1, thus having this bug.

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thread ... -fix-it%29

And 2 links deep is the one that gives the Microsoft link to this "optional" Windows Reliability Update, KB2529073. What a pain. So I then search through all those optional reliability updates listed in Windows Update (that I'd never bothered to install) and sure enough, that little booger was listed. But I had already done another "fix", which was to uninstall and reinstall the affected USB host controllers and have Windows "reinstall" the drivers upon reboot (which worked by the way). I decided to run the optional update, KB2529073 anyway, since a lot of people said the uninstall routine seemed to be only temporary fix before another failure occurred. I count myself lucky. Some users lost the use of BOTH their USB keyboard and mouse.

I then went on one of my other systems and checked that list BEFORE doing any updating. Sure enough, that KB number was listed as well. So I unchecked ALL the important updates and checked just that one and ran it. Scary! The machine rebooted twice during the update. I though for sure my system was borked. I'm going to wait until tomorrow to install the rest of the important updates. If both of these systems even BOOT, THEN I'll update my last system, my gaming rig.

TC, you didn't update to SP1 until today?!

No, no, I updated to SP1 a looooong time ago. The bug waited until TODAY to nuke this particular system however. Apparently, it can lay and wait for quite a while before happening to some unsuspecting user. The variability probably has to do with the certification dates on the usb controller drivers. This bug was going on as far back as 2010.

Ah, I see. Likely explains why one of my usb controllers briefly failed unexpectedly last week. It's an unusual issue, but a simple reboot fixed it, no big deal. I'll double-check that I got the fix when I get home.

Honestly, that brief issue is the only time I can remember having any problems with Win7 in the last year or so (and I have it running four different machines at home, including my dedicated media/Blu-ray/DVR box). It's a solid OS right now.

Rebooting did not fix this one. The first thing that worked was uninstalling and reinstalling the affected USB host controllers and letting Windows "find" the right drivers. I'm just thankful the keyboard is not a usb device on a laptop. It is on my gaming rig though. I would be impossible to navigate the OS without one.

I haven't had very many problems with Windows 7, but there have been a few. It's definitely a far better Microsoft OS than XP or Vista though, but I'm sure that users of other non-Microsoft operating systems would laugh at it.

I've never had any issues with windows 7 (x64) Professional. Then again I stay away from any "Home" edition

My gut instinct is if the O/S can not be part of a domain or be restricted with GPEdit it needs to be uninstalled.

Also a good rule of thumb... Disable A/V when ever you are doing updates, cuts update install times by almost 95%

tunnelcat wrote:I'm sure that users of other non-Microsoft operating systems would laugh at [Win7].

Well, I'm a user of other non-Microsoft operating systems (my team at work develops for Windows/Mac/iOS/Android). And for my machines at home, I prefer Win7, by far. It requires considerably less work than Linux variants, and can do far more than any Apple OS.

I've had a pretty good experience with Windows 7, although I lucked up and got a copy of Ultimate server install . Just turn on automatic updates TC, sometimes it causes problems sure, but not near as many problems as an unpatched OS does.

BUBBALOU wrote:Also a good rule of thumb... Disable A/V when ever you are doing updates, cuts update install times by almost 95%

That and getting a SSD, you can chew through a fresh install catch up batch of 100 updates in less than 5 minutes. It can easily take longer to download them than it does to install them.

BUBBALOU wrote:I've never had any issues with windows 7 (x64) Professional. Then again I stay away from any "Home" edition

My gut instinct is if the O/S can not be part of a domain or be restricted with GPEdit it needs to be uninstalled.

Also a good rule of thumb... Disable A/V when ever you are doing updates, cuts update install times by almost 95%

The one system I had trouble with was the Home Edition. Couldn't change that choice because that laptop was a freebee. The other 2 systems have Professional. The only A/V I use is MSE, so I don't bother to stop it, usually. I figure Microsoft knows better than to mess up their own updates, or am I wrong?

I may have figured out what happened with the borked USB host controllers. At one time, I ran Disk Cleanup and decided to get rid of all the old system files that Disk Cleanup will allow you do to (before I got CCleaner). I figured, hey, I might as well clean house thoroughly before the next defrag. I wonder if some old repository hotfix temp file (installed before SP1) was removed that may have initiated the problem? That probable scenario was mentioned in my link above as cause of that USB Controller bug.

Foil wrote:Well, I'm a user of other non-Microsoft operating systems (my team at work develops for Windows/Mac/iOS/Android). And for my machines at home, I prefer Win7, by far. It requires considerably less work than Linux variants, and can do far more than any Apple OS.

I do agree with you about Windows 7. It has been far more stable than all of Microsoft's previous OS's. It always sours me a little when it fails occasionally and lets me down and I have to spend time either correcting a user mistake, mine, or some other program's mistake, like some game's. I was just getting pissed off Windows Update was going south on 2 of my systems yesterday.

I'm actually amazed that I've gotten quite a few older games to play nice with Windows 7, so I am very impressed there. When I first bought Crysis, my old XP machine couldn't handle the eye candy at all. Now with my newer rig, my eyes pop out at the fantastic visuals. Cool. I'm going through Crysis and Crysis Warhead all over again to see what I missed out on the first time around.

EDIT: Just updated my gaming rig. I'd forget it came with SP1 already integrated, so no problems. KB2529073 isn't even on my optional Windows Update list either. The only hitch is that EVGA Precision was not active after the reboot.

My laptop is still henky. Windows claimed it had finished updating the computer, FROM YESTERDAY. Now I'm getting Error 1001 dhcp-client on every boot today, but I can still get connected. Never got it before. Maybe my wireless is henky today. I'll see if it keeps throwing the error. Maybe THAT driver's been messed up too.

One question for anyone, after the update before this one (last month), all 3 of my Windows 7 computers showed a weird message during boot on the day AFTER the update. On the Windows splash screen, it said something along the lines that it was doing something called Registry Operation 44. Any ideas?

tunnelcat wrote:
One question for anyone, after the update before this one (last month), all 3 of my Windows 7 computers showed a weird message during boot on the day AFTER the update. On the Windows splash screen, it said something along the lines that it was doing something called Registry Operation 44. Any ideas?

Sounds like normal Windows Update behavior to me. I've seen messages like that occasionally after updates. The registry is Windows DB for settings and is always updated during updates. No worries.

Isaac wrote:It turns out the issue was caused by the virus scanner.... lol. That's funny, like a snake eating its tail.

I'll be nice. If I ever meet you face to face ... I'm not letter you anywhere near my Win7 computers. You may know Linux (I only have your word for it), but from your posts in this thread, I can tell you're over your head with Windows.

Sorry.

Isaac wrote:Had to deal with that POS today, when a co-worker's updater screwed up. Windows 7 is such a slow bloated piece of malware.

The update should be renamed "DESTROYER". When it screws up, it basically takes out a few hours of your morning. I'm going to try to change everyone's computer to linux and rid the office of this fake OS.

are you willing to provide technical support? are you willing to teach users how to operate linux, including installing/uninstalling packages, configuration, driver installs, etc? what are you going to do if things go wrong and the boss finds out what you did?

if the answer is no or "i don't know".. then DO NOT TOUCH THEIR MACHINES!!

Isaac replacing the entire office with Linux.

Really.

Ferno wrote:are you willing to provide technical support? are you willing to teach users how to operate linux, including installing/uninstalling packages, configuration, driver installs, etc? what are you going to do if things go wrong and the boss finds out what you did?

if the answer is no or "i don't know".. then DO NOT TOUCH THEIR MACHINES!!

TigerRaptorFX wrote:Isaac replacing the entire office with Linux.

Really.

"Oh mai gawd! Linux soo complicated." / noobs

Windows users treat switching to Linux like a roller coaster ride. It's not that bad or that hard. The software is the key. I know what software the office uses and I've found replacements.

edit: Also, I'm not doing it all at once. I'm doing trial runs first. If the boss likes it on his computer for a while, then he'll switch the office. There's nothing scary about this process.

Lol @ noobs by noob

OSX.... Linux.... Windows NT 4/5/6

All the same to me!

Complaining about the ease/difficulty of use of any core platform
Is a sure sign of ignorance

They each have their purpose, when you understand ' what purpose ' and the ' application thereof ' then you may squeal noob like a potbelly pig at a BBQ competition

True Linux isn't that scary. But it seems you like to exaggerate when it comes to Linux. Like Windows is the devil or something.

TigerRaptorFX wrote:True Linux isn't that scary. But it seems you like to exaggerate when it comes to Linux. Like Windows is the devil or something.

Me thinks thouest forget about Windows 95 and ME.

BUBBALOU wrote:Lol @ noobs by noob

That's fine! Note that a Linux noob is far more capable than a room full of Facebook loving Windows noobs, who think Internet Explorer is Internet.

I take insult at that! I use Windows, but I don't use facebook OR Internet Explorer when I surf those series of tubes*, "ahem" I mean the Internet.

(*Alaska Senator Ted Stevens' description of what the internet is.)

Isaac wrote:

BUBBALOU wrote:Lol @ noobs by noob

That's fine! Note that a Linux noob is far more capable than a room full of Facebook loving Windows noobs, who think Internet Explorer is Internet.

That attitude isn't going to get you many well-paying jobs.

You are not going to have any say on what OS your job will dictate you will use.

fliptw wrote:

Isaac wrote:

BUBBALOU wrote:Lol @ noobs by noob

That's fine! Note that a Linux noob is far more capable than a room full of Facebook loving Windows noobs, who think Internet Explorer is Internet.

That attitude isn't going to get you many well-paying jobs.

You are not going to have any say on what OS your job will dictate you will use.

I use Linuxmint 13 Mate at work.

Doing what tho?

Bookkeeping (journal entries and payroll), asking questions to city officials (web browser stuff), graphics for communications (3d animation and vector art), web server fun, and writing letters.

When I get my CPA next year, I'll probably no longer get to do the fun web graphics stuff for pay, since I'll charge the market rate for whatever accounting I do, but I refuse to leave Linux.

Certified Professional Account?

Certified Public Accountant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certified_ ... Accountant

I'll be getting my CMA first, however, right after I graduate in the spring.

And accounting is not boring, unless you do governmental accounting.

tunnelcat wrote:

TigerRaptorFX wrote:True Linux isn't that scary. But it seems you like to exaggerate when it comes to Linux. Like Windows is the devil or something.

Me thinks thouest forget about Windows 95 and ME.

Never had any trouble with Win 95 and I had Packard Bell at the time. Windows 98 on the other hand was a bit of a problem child for me. Blue screen of death just about every damn time I used my old Umax Vista scanner.

The problem with Win9x was that processes could take the entire operating system down. One reason for this is that all processes shared a large portion of their address space with each other and the OS. So one bad process, either through an inadvertent bug or malicious intent, could corrupt everyone's memory. A lot of program bugs that would generate "This program needs to close now..." on most operating systems led to BSOD's on Win9x.

I remember that there were three Latin1 characters you could paste into notepad such that if you saved the file as a *.com and then executed it, it put the processor into some kind of state that the OS couldn't interrupt, essentially freezing everything.

On a multi-user OS, stuff like this is usually even considered a security vulnerability.

I recall once when I tried to dual-boot into Win98 on a machine that was running XP as the main OS. I wanted to get access to the files on the other partition, but it was NTFS - so I installed a third-party NTFS driver (don't think MS ever did release one for 9x).

Well... it turned out that driver wasn't very stable.

(And those characters: úëþ I don't know why I remember that...)

Nice, when Latin1-encoded, that disassembles to the "CLI" instruction, which Google says stands for "Clear Interrupts."

Yup, clear interrupts, jump back to the previous instruction, as I recall.

How would the processor know where the previous instruction was? In any case, I can't find that behavior documented.

I'm thinking the instruction pointer would eventually wander off into no man's land until execution generated an illegal instruction exception or a page fault. I'm not sure what that means for us when we've disabled interrupt handling. Will the processor halt? If execution somehow keeps going, this could be a problem too, since neither illegal instruction exceptions nor page faults update the instruction pointer. (In the case of illegal instruction, the instruction pointer can't be updated to anything since the processor wouldn't even know how large the instruction was, and in the case of page faults, the OS may want to re-execute the faulting instruction once, e.g., the faulting page is swapped back into the page table.)

It's a fun thought experiment, but it's definitely outside my area of expertise.

TigerRaptorFX wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:

TigerRaptorFX wrote:True Linux isn't that scary. But it seems you like to exaggerate when it comes to Linux. Like Windows is the devil or something.

Me thinks thouest forget about Windows 95 and ME.

Never had any trouble with Win 95 and I had Packard Bell at the time. Windows 98 on the other hand was a bit of a problem child for me. Blue screen of death just about every damn time I used my old Umax Vista scanner.

I Blue Screened 95 many a time, mostly with trying to get that first rev of DirectX to work. Never could get it to work right without BSODing the system, but thank God I missed the first incantation of 98. I didn't jump in until 98 SE.

Well, it's not exactly "previous instruction", it's an offset; -2 bytes I believe (the last byte, 0xFE, is -2 in two's complement - though I'm not sure all the bits are the offset or whether part of the preceding byte is as well, for that matter).

I see--it's actually two instructions. CLI is only the first byte. The second byte is the PC-relative jump to -2 (the third byte) that you describe. (When I disassembled, I assumed it was all one instruction.)