Should I ignore 0x8050800f crashes?!

[Rich]

In Windows Defender (Beta2) ver 1.1.1051.0, I periodically get this
crash/error:

"WD encountered an error: 0x8050800f. An unexpected problem ocurred.
Install any available updates, and then try to start program again..."

When I run "Check for Updates" in WD, it never finds any updates. In fact
it has NEVER found any updates... I get the impression that everyone is
still on the same/first release of WD. True?

I see from this newsgroup that many others get this same error. The gist I
get is that it's an inoccuous bug that I should just ignore and someday MS
will release a patch that fixes it. True?

Note: I'm running WinXP Pro SP2, with only 1 user logged in at a time. I
have seen no particular pattern as to when the error ocurrs except that I
think I notice it in the morning when I first look at my computer, but I'm
not 100% sure.

Thanks in advance for any advice (for me & others with this problem)!

-Rich

 

[Guest]

The current version of WD is as follows:
WD v. 1.1.1051.0
Engine v. 1.1.1303.0
Signature v. 1.14.1361.6

in WD go to Help Options (the little arrow next to the ?), About WD, and
check to see if your info agrees with the above.

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

You may be seeing multiple bugs here. There are regular updates--in fact,
two in the last 7 days, as I recall.

If you go to Windows Update, do an express scan, and apply all offered
critical updates, does that get you recent definitions?

Is this a home machine, or one on a managed, corporate lan. If this is a
corporate lan, do you know what software is used to distribute security
patches for Windows on the network?

Windows Defender updates via either Windows/Microsoft Update, or
Autoupdate--the updates within the program are via Autoupdate.

 

[Rich]

Hi Bill,

This XP Pro machine does nightly AutomaticUpdates. Just to be sure I ran
WindowsUpdate and confirmed that there were no critical updates for
download. My WD is Version=1.1.1051.0 & Engine=1.1.1303.0. Any way of
knowing if that's the latest?

When you say there have been 2 updates in the last 7 days, perhaps you're
talking about signature updates? If so, this doesn't seem like it would be
relavent to my problem.

Bottom line is that since I've been testing WD Beta2 for a few months on 2
PC's, it crashes on 1 of them w/ this error... not all the time but once in
awhile. MSAD Beta1 never crashed for me on any of the 6 PC's I run it on,
including 2 servers (WS2003). I'm hesitant to upgrade any more MSAD's to WD
because of this error, unless of course I can be sure it's purely cosmetic &
inoccuous... thus my original question.

Thanks.

-Rich

 

[Rich]

p.s. Sorry for the typos just before "MSAD". Of course that should've been
"MSAS". It's late!

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

OK--your first message stated that you never found any updates, and you've
yet to post the definition update level, so I didn't know that you were not
referring to definition updates.

You are two engine updates above the original release. The UI code, which
I'm ASSuming is the first number, has not yet changed.

All updates, defiinition or engine, received so far, come via the same
route--autoupdate, or Windows Update.

I see the error in your subject header occasionally on an SBS-2000
server--which is normally running with a console session and one or perhaps
two administrative remote Desktop sessions as well. As far as I can tell it
is entirely harmless--scheduled scans seem to be starting and completing on
schedule, etc--based on looking at the system event log filtered for source
Windefend.

I haven't seen it on about 49 other machines I work with, including another
very similar SBS server--so I don't have any clear idea what the cause is.

--

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

That's good. I feel pretty comfortable saying that this particular crash,
in my experience, seems to be insignificant, but no Active Directory crash
would qualify for that!

 

[Rich]

OK, thanks very much for the corroboration Bill.

Just curious, do you know if MS is likely to address bugs like this in WD
Beta2? (Before Vista?!) Based on various factors, I get the impression that
MSAS/WD don't really get a lot of attention/budget amongst the MS
development projects

-Rich.

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Bugs in Windows Defender are being actively addressed. We know of bugs that
have been described as fixed, but are in the User Interface code--and a
revision to that has not been released. I do expect revised User Interface
code to be released at some point in the beta, and it will contain that
fix--for one of the scanning errors, and probably a good many others as
well. We've seen two Engine updates since February 14th, and I expect to
see more updates before long.

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