What to do? - Windows 2000 Pro - June 13, 2006 High Priority Security Update for Windows Media Playe

[Stan Shankman]

High Priority Security Update for Windows Media Player 9 (KB917734) - Fails

Greetings everyone,

On my Windows 2000 Pro box, I am not able to successfully install this
security update:
High Priority Security Update for Windows Media Player 9 (KB917734)

Up till this update, my machine has been performing nominally. I keep my
machine continually updated with auto-update, also, I run Windows Defender.

The update in question was one of ten (if I recall correctly) that just
showed up.
The Auto-update monitoring-window seemed to hang once it got to this
particular update (number "8" I believe). I let Auto-Update run for a good
while before finally hitting the "Cancel" button - but it did not cancel.
CPU usage is running 100% - although the user interface seems rather
responsive. I Ctrl-Alt-Del(eted) the task. It left the screen, but CPU usage
remained at 100%. I did a re-boot.

Once rebooted, I tried again. This time, only 3 updates remained and the one
in question was the first to be processed. It did a repeated performance. -
no-go.
I did another re-start.

Once up-and-running, I visited Windows Update, and by un-checking the update
in question, I was able to successfully download the other two still-pending
updates.

But now, I am left with update KB917734 failing each time I try. It's still
a no-go.

What to do?

- Stan Shankman

 

[Stan Shankman]

.. . . I should point out, that I did let Media-Player-9 check for its own
updates. It went out a "looked", but found none.

I will describe in more detail what happens when I attempt to download
update KB917734:

Auto-Update (or Windows-Update) starts out just fine - advancing normally,
but then at some point, the progress bar "sticks" - it just sits there from
then on out. As this point, CPU usage pegs at 100% (as seen on the
Performance-Tab of theWindows-Task-Manager) Note that the mouse cursor still
quite responsive, but all attempts to use the computer result in
bogged-down, extremely slow performance. I must reboot and then *not*
attempt to install the update if I want to continue to use my computer.

 

[Stan Shankman]

Greetings again,



Well, I got that update to complete.



This is what I did:



While reading around the web for help, I came across the update on the
Microsoft site.

I was able to download the update as a .exe file. (Update KB917734) I ran
it, and it did the same thing - it did not complete, but interestingly, this
time it told me *why* it could not complete. It claimed that another process
was already installing the update. Hummmm . . . I did a Ctl-Alt-Del and
looked at the CPU usage - sure enough, it was pegged. This time, I looked at
the processes that were running, and identified the one that was using all
the CPU cycles. Sorry I can't remember the name of it. But I killed the
process, and regained control of my PC. I then ran the update again, and
this time it completed successfully.



Now, how much sleep will I loose wondering what caused it to misbehave?



Aren't computer fun!



- Stan Shankman

 

[Guest]

I'm using XP SP2 and have a similar problem with KB917734 and am unable to
instal it either automatically or manually. I notice that you have Windows
defender running - so do I. I wonder if this could be the problem. My
Defender is v 8.1

Stuart Walton

 

[Guest]

I saw the same problem, and in my case, the updated caused the Cygwin
ssh daemon to run in an infinite loop, as well as the update hanging.

My solution was to go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services
and to stop the CYGWIN sshd process (right click on the process, and select
Stop)

I hope this is useful.

Chris.

 

[Guest]

I followed Stans method and downloaded the appropriate KB917734.EXE file for
the Media version I was using (10) running under XP Pro. It installed OK but
the Automatic update file still remained showing it to be uninstalled. I shut
down and restarted but it remained uninstalled so I tried custom instal and
it worked ok.

Thanks Stan

 

[Guest]

Yes, exactly the same thing happened with me. And as it turns out, it was the
synaptics touchpad service which was interfering with the installation
process and as soon as I killed it, the update was able to proceed.