update.exe and updspapi.dll?

[Bruce.]

XP Pro SP 3.

On my brand new 1 TB USB drive, I now find 4 directories with 2 files in
each. I'm not sure if they were there before I first plugged it in. The 4
directories names are:

1b1253bd34b0103908888234
1d7e8ea4d4783ee8daf76ad4e141
95c08cf91bdfc4531fe365ffd8ab
a6e5c9229954c913b0d331aa5cd527

Each one has a subdirectory "update" and it contains these 2 files:

05/25/2006 10:29 AM 716,000 update.exe
05/25/2006 10:29 AM 371,424 updspapi.dll

A search of the web turns up little information and my virus scanner calls
them clean.

Anyone know what they are and why I have 4 bizarre directory names with
these files in them? Safe to delete?

Bruce.

 

[Nepatsfan]

XP Pro SP 3.

On my brand new 1 TB USB drive, I now find 4 directories with 2 files in each.
I'm not sure if they were there before I first plugged it in. The 4
directories names are:

1b1253bd34b0103908888234
1d7e8ea4d4783ee8daf76ad4e141
95c08cf91bdfc4531fe365ffd8ab
a6e5c9229954c913b0d331aa5cd527

Each one has a subdirectory "update" and it contains these 2 files:

05/25/2006 10:29 AM 716,000 update.exe
05/25/2006 10:29 AM 371,424 updspapi.dll

A search of the web turns up little information and my virus scanner calls
them clean.

Anyone know what they are and why I have 4 bizarre directory names with these
files in them? Safe to delete?

Bruce.

You can delete all four folders. They were created by an update to Windows.
These folders are usually deleted automatically once the update has been
installed. That said, it's not unusual to see them still present.

Good luck

Nepatsfan

 

[Bruce.]

You can delete all four folders. They were created by an update to
Windows. These folders are usually deleted automatically once the update
has been installed. That said, it's not unusual to see them still present.

Ok, thanks. I though it was odd that the "update" files would be dated
05/25/2006 10:29 AM . Pretty old for an update.

But I'll delete them.

Thanks.
Bruce.

 

[Elmo]

I have the same problem; I've tried to delete the files but it says
"cannot delete update: access is denied"

More seriously, my laptop will not boot up fully until I switch on the
usb drive with those files on it.

I've tried using GiPo move on boot utility but that also failed to
remove the files.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

OK, I found the thread you replied to:

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...update.exe+and+updspapi.dll?#e192d259a64123f2

Your newsreader, vBulletin, clipped off the post, so no one can tell
from this post what the initial problem was. You should start your own
thread so your post is seen, or at least include the previous post with
a copy/paste. That said, here's an idea or two on how to correct the
problem:

Click Start, Run, type REGEDIT, click OK. Press the Home key, press F3,
type the name of the file into the search pane. Click "Find Next", and
when located, deal with the reference to the file. Press F3 to continue
the search.

How to "deal" with the file? Well, to prevent the need to insert the
USB drive, look for references to E:\ (example where E: is the USB
drive) and change them to C:\. The reference is probably more like the
following example:

E:\$MSI31Uninstall_KB893803$\Update.exe

and will need to be changed to:

C:\Windows\$MSI31Uninstall_KB893803$\Update.exe

But you'll also need to move all the contents of:

E:\$MSI31Uninstall_KB893803$\Update.exe

to:

C:\Windows\$MSI31Uninstall_KB893803$\Update.exe

All this is assuming a Windows update was stored to a USB drive and, in
the Registry, a Runonce entry is attempting to run update.exe and
install the update.

You can click File, Export, and save each entry to the Desktop before
making any change. If you remove it and there's a problem, double-click
the .reg file you exported to the Desktop and it'll be added to the
registry again. You can create a restore point before editing the
registry too.

You could click Start, Run, type MSCONFIG, click OK, click the StartUp
tab, and deselect the item(s). When you restart the computer, you will
be warned that you're running in the Diagnostic mode; click to not alert
you again, and OK out. You won't see the message again. But I think
it's best to just remove the references from the registry.

If a Windows update was damaged, or not installed correctly because it
was written to the USB drive, using Control Panel, Add/Remove to remove
the update could correct the problem. When reinstalling the update,
don't have the USB drive installed and maybe the update will go to the
Windows folder where it should have been inserted.

IF you always let the updates go to the USB drive, you'll need to have
the drive turned on during bootup so Windows can change the settings
accordingly and remove the Runonce reference to update.exe. Then the
folders should be freed up and you can delete them.