Update Failures

[Mackie]

After the last Windows Vista update I happened to click on the Update
History link, and what should I find but a list of 81 update
failures! All of these occured on one date during one update session,
11/23/2007, which was only the second update since the day I bought
this laptop. And by the way, I remember that day and the fact that my
dsl connection failed right after the update got started.

All 66 updates since that date are the sum of 13 successive,
successful sessions. To determine whether Microsoft had detected the
failed updates and then corrected the matter by re-sending them, I
copied two sample update numbers from the bad session to a text file,
then went through the list of successful updates to find, in fact,
that one update had been resent, but the other not. And so now I
wonder whether that missing update had indeed been detected and re-
sent as part of a cumulative service pack under a different I.D?

All I know is that despite the failures in that list, anytime I run
the Windows Update app, like after a successful update, the message I
get is that Windows is up to date. I would have no difficulty
accepting that but for the message which appears at the top of the
Update HIstory page, to wit: "Make sure all important updates have
been successfully installed." Well! According to the list on that
page, certainly not.

The contradiction between these two messages must be resolved before I
go whacky, setting cheese baited traps for my optical mouse and
howling at the moon.

Help!

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

To know for sure what updates you have installed, rightclick the command
prompt icon on start, and 'run as administrator'. At the prompt, type:

systeminfo

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Mark L. Ferguson

..

 

[Mackie]

To know for sure what updates you have installed, rightclick the command
prompt icon on start, and 'run as administrator'. At the prompt, type:

systeminfo

Yes! Although I could find no "run as administrator" option. So I
went ahead and typed "sysinfo" into the "start search" box, which
caused that sort of DOS screen to appear with the Hotfix(s) list, but
for just a moment. So I went to Accessories, clicked Command Prompt,
typed "sysinfo" and finally got the goods that way. Whew!

Now I was able to get my Update History on screen in another window to
start the cross-checking, and to my relief, I find that the updates
listed as "failed" (so far as I've checked) are now listed as being
installed, most of which appear however, out of numerical order at the
lower half of the list, indicating, one would assume, that they were
indeed re-sent at a later date.

So, it looks like the update program does run a check for any failures
and does indeed send them again. That's what I hoped to be the case.

Thanks a lot!