A confusing night of Windows Update

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave
  • Start date Start date
D

Dave

Last night I decided to try Windows update again. I
had been staying away since it's left me with an
unbootable PC 3 times now and because a few months back
it got into an infinite loop of it wanting to install the
latest update control over and over. At that time MS said
this looping behavior was still under investigation and
that's what it still says. However, I decided I had
gone long enough so I followed some of Microsoft's
directions for updating the updater manually and got
back on and found 8 critical updates.

I installed 3 and I rebooted without a problem so I
installed the other 5. Woops - unbootable PC. In the
past, I always used Ghost to rewrite my system
partition but this time I decided to try the last known
good configuration and it worked. Wow - that was
certainly quick and easy. So then I went back to
Windows update, updated the update control again and
then found myself with 11 critical updates instead of
8. I'm wondering whether the last known good
configuration did more than I thought it did? I had
successfully rebooted several times before updating and
had set a restore point so I would have guessed that
booting to last known good would have taken me back to
the same 8 updates. The "new" updates show up in my
Windows Update installation history as being originally
successfully installed in July and September of last
year and I've had several clean boots in between now
and then. Was "last known good" a good idea or do I now
have some unknown/mismatched collection of registry
entries and code?

I downloaded the 3 that worked the first time and
rebooted and all was fine. So I tried a couple more
and was unbootable again. So I want back to last known
good and updated the update control again and had 11
critical updates again. That makes sense.

Eventually I figured out which one doesn't play with my
system and loaded the other 10. My system rebooted
fine. Then I went back to Windows update and I have 2
critical updates. The "bad" one and one of the ones I
just installed (819696). So what the heck, I installed
that one again. System reboots fine. Everything works
fine. Go back to Windows Update and it STILL says I
have 2 critical updates including the one that was just
installed twice (819696). And sure enough, if I go to
the Windows Update "View Installation History" it shows
it as being successfully installed a total of four
times now - the first time in July 2003. (On trips to
Windows update between July and now, it didn't tell me I
needed that one again - it's only since the last known
good reboot.)

I'm wondering now if it would be best to reload my
system from the ghost image I made before updating and
then installing the 7 of the original 8 originally
offered by the update control? Have I confused
Windows Update beyond all hope by rebooting in the
last known good configuration?
 
I believe that Microsoft will reissue an update if there are issues with the
original. I seem to remember updating Internet Explorer SP1 at least 3
times. Each one was an update on an update, it would seem.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)
 
-----Original Message-----
I believe that Microsoft will reissue an update if there
are issues with the original.

Thanks.

I suppose that's possible, but the three "new" updates
appeared on a Sunday night (ie they weren't there at
7:30pm PST and where at 8pm after my last known good
reboot) and in their descriptions they say nothing about
reissuing and have the original revision dates so this
doesn't seem very likely to me. (Unless MS has a past
history of reissuing updates like that?)
 
Also, some updates need a requisite update before they are shown as
available. I have seen this a couple of times also. Can't remember which
ones though. I think that .net is one of them. Also, maybe, an update to
Windows Media Player that does not show up until after you have already
updated to WMP 9.0. Then the security scripting update gets pushed to you.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Back
Top