WinXP 'Windows Updates'

[David H. Lipman]

The WinXP Windows Updates seem to have been given the lowest priority.
If manually searching for updates, it sure does take a loooooooooooooooong time.

 

[philo]

The WinXP Windows Updates seem to have been given the lowest priority.
If manually searching for updates, it sure does take a loooooooooooooooong time.

Yep, I often have two machines at a time on my workbench and last week
*all* post sp1 win7 updates were downloaded before XP was able to find
the newest half-dozen or so.

 

[VanguardLH]

Hmm, posts HTML in a text-only newsgroup. Forgets to trim off the
signature in the quoted content. Not quite got the new NNTP client
configured yet?

 

[Bruce Hagen]

Hmm, posts HTML in a text-only newsgroup. Forgets to trim off the
signature in the quoted content. Not quite got the new NNTP client
configured yet?

Reply to messages using the format in which they were sent got inadvertently
unchecked. I use the NNTP Bridge for the MS forums and as it is a "back
door" to a Website, HTML is preferred there.

 

[Paul]

The WinXP Windows Updates seem to have been given the lowest priority.
If manually searching for updates, it sure does take a loooooooooooooooong time.

What happens is, if an Internet Explorer update is "pending"
and in your queue, wuauserv goes off in a loop for half an hour.

If you can guess at what the KB is of the latest Internet Explorer
security patch, you can download that patch separately. Once
installed, your Internet Explorer version is up to date.

The very next attempt to reach Windows Update, because it has
no need to burrow into all the old Internet Explorer information,
wuauserv finishes its job in ten to fifteen seconds.

When an Internet Explorer patch arrives in January, the same
thing will happen. Long delay on Windows Update. Simply, track
down the Jan.2014 Internet Explorer update, install it separately,
and the long delay will be gone again. You can then open
Windows Update and finish the other Jan.2014 patches.

While a Microsoft manager claims they've "put the right staff on it
and will fix it", I'm expecting a "sit on my hands" behavior until
April 2014. Causing all sorts of grief for people attempting to
clean install their WinXP later than April 2014, and so on.
It would just be Microsoft's way of "encouraging you to update".

We'll see whether my cynical speculation pans out or not

Paul

 

[David H. Lipman]

Download this update manually then restart the PC. It should make WU/MU run smooth after
that. It did for me.

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP (KB2898785)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41404

Thanx, I'll give ist a shot.

 

[David H. Lipman]

Download this update manually then restart the PC. It should make WU/MU run smooth after
that. It did for me.

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP (KB2898785)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41404

This worked. Thanx Bruce and Happy Holidays !

 

[Bruce Hagen]

This worked. Thanx Bruce and Happy Holidays !

You're very welcome.

 

[Bob F]

When an Internet Explorer patch arrives in January, the same
thing will happen. Long delay on Windows Update. Simply, track
down the Jan.2014 Internet Explorer update, install it separately,
and the long delay will be gone again. You can then open
Windows Update and finish the other Jan.2014 patches.

While a Microsoft manager claims they've "put the right staff on it
and will fix it", I'm expecting a "sit on my hands" behavior until
April 2014. Causing all sorts of grief for people attempting to
clean install their WinXP later than April 2014, and so on.
It would just be Microsoft's way of "encouraging you to update".

We'll see whether my cynical speculation pans out or not

Paul

Is there really a way to gather up all updates to have on hand to keep XP
machines running when MS stops making updates available? I've used the
WSUSoffline program, but that seems to get a pretty limited subset of updates,
and seems unreliable in it's ability to install the ones it downloads? I found
plenty of updates that show the KB# in the downloaded library, but the installer
cannot find them.

 

[Paul]

Is there really a way to gather up all updates to have on hand to keep XP
machines running when MS stops making updates available? I've used the
WSUSoffline program, but that seems to get a pretty limited subset of updates,
and seems unreliable in it's ability to install the ones it downloads? I found
plenty of updates that show the KB# in the downloaded library, but the installer
cannot find them.

My bookmarks list has this one.

http://download.wsusoffline.net/

Tools like that, they probe the Microsoft manifest files, and
make a list of updates. Then, the actual file comes from
Microsoft, for each download. So the files are not actually
hosted on that site, and you're downloading them from Microsoft.
If the files were stored on wsusoffline web site, the
Microsoft lawyers would come after them.

Later, you're supposed to be able to update your OS, against
that downloaded folder. That's the part I haven't tried yet. Since
I have VMs available, I'm going to have to test that
soon, in preparation for April.

There are tools besides that one. That's not the only
one. A previous one, the tool wasn't kept up to date,
and at the end of Win2K support, the tool was useless.
(I was not able to make a repository for Win2K.)
It's a lot of work to keep stuff like that working
properly. You can't expect developers to work on
that forever, for free. It's different than writing
a utility, that after a while it's "finished". There's
always a "curve-ball" with that WU stuff, an unexpected
thing that needs to be fixed.

Paul

 

[philo]

My bookmarks list has this one.

http://download.wsusoffline.net/

Tools like that, they probe the Microsoft manifest files, and
make a list of updates. Then, the actual file comes from
Microsoft, for each download. So the files are not actually
hosted on that site, and you're downloading them from Microsoft.
If the files were stored on wsusoffline web site, the
Microsoft lawyers would come after them.
X

I've used that utility and it takes so long to calculate what is needed
I can actually download all the updates and install them from the update
site faster.

The main question is : How long will they be available after support ends?

 

[Bob F]

My bookmarks list has this one.

http://download.wsusoffline.net/

Tools like that, they probe the Microsoft manifest files, and
make a list of updates. Then, the actual file comes from
Microsoft, for each download. So the files are not actually
hosted on that site, and you're downloading them from Microsoft.
If the files were stored on wsusoffline web site, the
Microsoft lawyers would come after them.

Later, you're supposed to be able to update your OS, against
that downloaded folder. That's the part I haven't tried yet. Since
I have VMs available, I'm going to have to test that
soon, in preparation for April.

That's the one I mentioned. I was trying to restore a laptop that had had Win7
installed over it's origional Vista installation and had some serious problems
booting up. It still had its origional recovery partition, so I used that to
restore the origional Vista installation. I then tried using an then up-to-date
WSUSofline v8.6 DVD I had just created to update it with all updates from when
it was manufactured. It failed badly, not successfully installing many updates
it found, and not finding probably a hundred updates that to me seemed to be in
the downloaded files (referenced by KB# - I could find the KB# in the list on
the DVD that it claimed it couldn't find). I finally had to use Windows Update
to get it up-to-date, and had to run Windows Update and reboot at least half a
dozen times to do that.

Researching WSUSofline, it became apparent to me that it downloads a limited
number of the microsoft updates mostly related to security problems, and not
many others. For instance, it did not get the update for Internet Explorer from
ver.7, I believe, that was on the recovery disk. Windows Update also did not get
this one until well into the multiple update cycles, but my reading suggested
that the WSUSoffline tool might not get this kind of thing.

**********************************
from
http://forums.wsusoffline.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=172
"On both sides, i.e. for download and installation parts, WSUS Offline Update
uses Microsoft's update catalog file wsusscn2.cab to dynamically determine the
required patches. This catalog file contains at least all the updates classified
as "critical" and "security relevant", but it does not necessarily contain all
"important" and "optional" ones.

Compared with other competitors, the great advantage of this solution is that no
one has to maintain statical download/installation lists, so you may be up to
date with your update repository immediately after a Microsoft "patch day",
without having to wait for a new release of WSUS Offline Update.

The disadvantage of this implementation is that computers updated by WSUS
Offline Update will hardly ever completely satisfy Microsoft's Online Update
afterwards, but the patch coverage does completely satisfy Microsoft's Baseline
Security Analyzer (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/secu ... 84923.aspx),
and you also may add any optional update of your choice to both download and
installation parts using statical definitions.

Furthermore, as WSUS Offline Update uses "Windows Update Agent" (WUA) to
determine the patches to install on client/target side, there won't be any way
to support deprecated systems like Windows 95/98/ME and NT.

As a conclusion one has to state that WSUS Offline Update is not a complete
replacement for Online Update, but it's not meant to be!
The main goal of WSUS Offline Update is to quickly and safely bring freshly
installed Windows systems to a patch level which allows them to be safely
connected to the Internet. From this point of view, even the Office part of WSUS
Offline Update is a "goodie"."
***********************************

Which leaves you short, if Microsoft will no longer offer the updates.

 

[Charlie+]

That's the one I mentioned. I was trying to restore a laptop that had had Win7
installed over it's origional Vista installation and had some serious problems
booting up. It still had its origional recovery partition, so I used that to
restore the origional Vista installation. I then tried using an then up-to-date
WSUSofline v8.6 DVD I had just created to update it with all updates from when
it was manufactured. It failed badly, not successfully installing many updates
it found, and not finding probably a hundred updates that to me seemed to be in
the downloaded files (referenced by KB# - I could find the KB# in the list on
the DVD that it claimed it couldn't find). I finally had to use Windows Update
to get it up-to-date, and had to run Windows Update and reboot at least half a
dozen times to do that.

Researching WSUSofline, it became apparent to me that it downloads a limited
number of the microsoft updates mostly related to security problems, and not
many others. For instance, it did not get the update for Internet Explorer from
ver.7, I believe, that was on the recovery disk. Windows Update also did not get
this one until well into the multiple update cycles, but my reading suggested
that the WSUSoffline tool might not get this kind of thing.

**********************************
from
http://forums.wsusoffline.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=172
"On both sides, i.e. for download and installation parts, WSUS Offline Update
uses Microsoft's update catalog file wsusscn2.cab to dynamically determine the
required patches. This catalog file contains at least all the updates classified
as "critical" and "security relevant", but it does not necessarily contain all
"important" and "optional" ones.

Compared with other competitors, the great advantage of this solution is that no
one has to maintain statical download/installation lists, so you may be up to
date with your update repository immediately after a Microsoft "patch day",
without having to wait for a new release of WSUS Offline Update.

The disadvantage of this implementation is that computers updated by WSUS
Offline Update will hardly ever completely satisfy Microsoft's Online Update
afterwards, but the patch coverage does completely satisfy Microsoft's Baseline
Security Analyzer (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/secu ... 84923.aspx),
and you also may add any optional update of your choice to both download and
installation parts using statical definitions.

Furthermore, as WSUS Offline Update uses "Windows Update Agent" (WUA) to
determine the patches to install on client/target side, there won't be any way
to support deprecated systems like Windows 95/98/ME and NT.

As a conclusion one has to state that WSUS Offline Update is not a complete
replacement for Online Update, but it's not meant to be!
The main goal of WSUS Offline Update is to quickly and safely bring freshly
installed Windows systems to a patch level which allows them to be safely
connected to the Internet. From this point of view, even the Office part of WSUS
Offline Update is a "goodie"."
***********************************

Which leaves you short, if Microsoft will no longer offer the updates.

Lot of stuff above about WSUS Offline - all I can say is that from my
standpoint it is a brilliant solution - I have updated 9 computers from
zero to current using it (XP and W7). BUT I took the trouble to learn
how it works by trying it out on a trial computer twice first and I
would advise ppl to use a hard disk to run it from, not DVDs - I used a
USB connected HDD each time. The file set after the client directories
have been filled from Microsoft now run to 13 GB of updates in my case
and that is without any x64 update stuff! Dont even try on a dialup
connection!
Dont try relying on WSUS without a bit of homework first! The reason I
went to WSUS in the first place was that these computers wouldnt update
at all straight from MS update BUT it is a German originating program
and not a doddle ....C+

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

After the next 14 April, I hope Microsoft will publish the whole final
updates.

In any case, after or before April, there is a guy who every month publishes
the whole XP updates in one package.
It's sure that guy will publish it even after 14 April 2014, so we should be
tranquil about updates.

I don't know who this guy is nor any details about what he does or
where to get what he publishes. However downloading and installing
what some anonymous individual does in this regard is playing with
fire. It may be safe but it also may not. There's no way to be sure
that he isn't malicious and what he publishes isn't laced with
malware.

I strongly recommend against it.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Your doubts and your prudence are unquestionably right.
However the guy is well known in a trusted forum. I am inclined to trust
him.

OK, then what you say takes away *some* of the risk.

But not all of it. Note that not everyone in this newsgroup knows you
and can trust you when you say something like that.

Please understand that I am not trying to accuse you of anything. I
don't know you and I have no reason to suspect you of doing anything
malicious. My point is just that, when it comes to the possibility of
malware, trusting a stranger (whether the stranger is you, me, or
anyone else) is a very dangerous thing to do.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

+1

In my zone a famous proverb literally says: "Prudence is never too much".

Glad you agree, and glad you didn't find my message insulting. It
certainly wasn't meant that way.

(I hope my literal translation is valid for English/American people too)

It looks fine to me. E Italiano? Parlo un pochino d'Italiano.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

"La prudenza non è mai troppa"

My Italian is good enough that I can understand that even without your
prior translation.

 

[Bruce Hagen]

Bruce, thanks very much. I was having a problem updating too and as the
others have said, this fixed the problem.

You're welcome.

 

[Bob F]

I share that exact cynicism.


You should have all the updates that you've installed on a particular
machine backed up in the C:\Windows\$hf_mig$ hidden system folder.
Each update folder contains a subfolder named "update" with an
update.exe file in it. If you copy that folder to a DVD or whatever,
you can have it on hand for that particular machine. Then it would
probably only be a matter of installing the updates in the order in
which they were originally. You can use a Nirsoft utility named
"WinUpdatesList":
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wul.html

to provide you with a list of that order. Run that program and then
click on "View" and then "HTML Report - All Items".

Note: I've never done it this way, but I don't see why it shouldn't
work. If I'm wrong, I hope somebody in this thread will point out what
the problem with my idea is.

Good information to have. Thanks.

 

[Charlie+]

I share that exact cynicism.


You should have all the updates that you've installed on a particular
machine backed up in the C:\Windows\$hf_mig$ hidden system folder. Each
update folder contains a subfolder named "update" with an update.exe
file in it. If you copy that folder to a DVD or whatever, you can have
it on hand for that particular machine. Then it would probably only be a
matter of installing the updates in the order in which they were
originally. You can use a Nirsoft utility named "WinUpdatesList":

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wul.html

to provide you with a list of that order. Run that program and then
click on "View" and then "HTML Report - All Items".

Note: I've never done it this way, but I don't see why it shouldn't
work. If I'm wrong, I hope somebody in this thread will point out what
the problem with my idea is.

The length of time and effort it would take to go one by one?!