Still not ready to give Win7 SP1 the green light

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	PATCH WATCH[/size][/font] Still not ready to give Win7 SP1 the green light[/size]
	By Susan Bradley Reports from the small-business community describe severe installation problems with Windows 7 Service Pack 1. With no compelling reason to install SP1, this update remains on hold. [/size]

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The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/2011/03/24/07 (opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.[/td]

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I think it would be useful to have a “install now” list instead of a “don’t install now” list. As it is now, I need to compare the last list to this weeks list and then install the fixes that do not appear on this week’s list. Of course that would also mean occasionally publishing a master fix list of “approved” patches. Just an idea to ponder..

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I would tend to agree, unfortunately I tend to help people who haven’t updated for years or may have “just updated to the latest Patch” (XP SP2!) six months ago, so even a comprehensive list, somewhere, would be great.

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This week’s (paid) column gives inconsistent advice about Windows 7 SP1. Susan, you say hold off; Fred says go ahead. Which is it? Or does that depend on the type of installation? I’d guess that it does, and wish that you could spell that out in an upcoming column. Thanks.

BTW, I depend strongly on your advice and “how-to” articles for my own systems, and frequently reference them in classes that I teach locally. Thanks for all the good work.

Don from Eugene, OR.

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In February 2010, you reccomended holding off on MS11-010/012/013/014. Maybe I missed it, but I have not seen advice whether these patches are safe yet

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Susan,
Just a note to warn others of a couple of things to do before applying SP1 for Win7 (x64). I discovered a client’s failing hard drive after trying to apply SP1. The first occurrence I wrote off to a fluke; after it occurred on the rerun I looked and thought more carefully about it before trying again. This article was helpful in realizing I needed to do a full Chkdsk before trying again. In this particular case the drive had non-recoverable errors and failed permanently fairly quickly (non-managed environment so no obvious warning other than the 8007045D before the hard fail).

There may have been Event Log entries warning of the problem but once I had the hard failure it was too late. It not only wouldn’t boot but was not readable on other systems after removal so ultimately nothing was recovered from the drive.

Reminds me that I added a weekly or monthly Chkdsk job to scheduled tasks on another client machine where I suspected IO issues and after a couple of runs with errors I replaced the drive and it’s been quiet since. I’m probably going to begin adding the monthly Chkdsk to those unmanaged client computers as they come through my door now so I have some fairly easy way of being warned of failures (via the Wininit source record in Event Log). It’s not hard to schedule and pretty obviously has potential to get on top of disk problems before data loss.

FWIW, other than the above I’ve seen no problems since I’ve been ‘dogfooding’ the SP1 update. Seems to be pretty well baked from other reports so unless something major crops up soon I’d say it’s ready for more general population’s computers.

Best regards,
Rob Cohen

	PATCH WATCH[/size][/font] Still not ready to give Win7 SP1 the green light[/size]
	By Susan Bradley Reports from the small-business community describe severe installation problems with Windows 7 Service Pack 1. With no compelling reason to install SP1, this update remains on hold. [/size]

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The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/2011/03/24/07 (opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.[/td]

[/tr][/tbl]

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My system (Dell XPS400 Pentium D 4GB RAM two internal hard drives) kept failing to install USB port drivers for 4 of my 6 USB ports leaving just the top 2 back ports active after rebooting. The problem was repaired until the next reboot by running the Hardware Module of Windows 7 FixIt.

I ran a system image backup before installing SP1 so I was able to restore to my pre-SP1 system using that. After that restore I ran “sfc /scannow” which found an unfixable corruption so I had to run Win 7 64-bit upgrade from my retail Microsoft disk. Note and warning to all – I could not simply uninstall SP1 because I had run a disk cleanup after installing SP1!

Is there any method to get Win 7 to backup to my 2nd internal drive?

Oh, I am running all offered Win 7 64-bit updates except Windows Live or any of the Language Packs. Thanks for telling how to hide them

Norman Castel

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Re: “Apple releases fixes….” Which of these updates applies to the iPOD touch? I’m guessing I update iTunes… but anything more? Thanks.

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I ran a system image backup before installing SP1 so I was able to restore to my pre-SP1 system using that. After that restore I ran “sfc /scannow” which found an unfixable corruption so I had to run Win 7 64-bit upgrade from my retail Microsoft disk. Note and warning to all – I could not simply uninstall SP1 because I had run a disk cleanup after installing SP1!

If you really used an image backup and restore, then what was restored was exactly what was there when the image was made. If that’s what you did, then in all probability the system file problem was there before you made the pre-SP1 image, and had nothing to do with the SP1 install. Note that you didn’t really “uninstall” SP1 (which can’t be done)–you restored an older installation when you restored the saved system image.

Is there any method to get Win 7 to backup to my 2nd internal drive?

Yes!

[*]Open the backup & restore control panel.
[*]In the “Backup” section, click on “Change settings.”
[*]In the “Set up backup” dialog that appears, select the desired backup destination.
[*]Click through on the “Next” buttons until you get to the dialog with the “Save settings and exit” button, then click that button.

That’s it!

Oh, I am running all offered Win 7 64-bit updates except Windows Live or any of the Language Packs. Thanks for telling how to hide them

Simply right-click on the updates you don’t want to install, and select “Hide update” from the context menu.

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Is there any method to get Win 7 to backup to my 2nd internal drive?
Oh, I am running all offered Win 7 64-bit updates except Windows Live or any of the Language Packs. Thanks for telling how to hide them
Norman Castel

BTW, Norman–in general, it’s best to post off-topic questions in new threads on the forum, as it’s much more likely that you’ll get useful and timely answers that way. When ancillary questions are buried in a post that addresses the current thread, they’re much easier to ignore or overlook. Note, too, that starting a new thread means that others with the same question(s) are more likely to find that discussion and benefit from the answers given.

Thanks for participating!

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Susan says not to install Windows 7 SP1 while Fred Langa says that all is fine in SP1-land. Who is being overly cautious and who is being not cautious enough?

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Susan says not to install Windows 7 SP1 while Fred Langa says that all is fine in SP1-land. Who is being overly cautious and who is being not cautious enough?

To add to the confusion, Woody Leonhard is not recommending SP1 at this time. But the real story is that there is no story. There isn’t anything exciting or pressing in SP1, so install it or not, your computer will behave almost exactly the same way. Given a few BSOD reports and a couple of other gotchas when installing this Service Pack, maybe waiting awhile is a good idea. Just my opinion.

-- rc primak

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Any chance you could put the problem-patch table into a stick post so that it’s always at the top of your column’s forum (or else give it its own page with a permalink) so that we can always easily find the latest table when we need it?

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Thank you.

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If you keep updating and publishing the table in “ Regularly updated problem-patch chart“, that will be really useful. Thanks.

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I have a laptop with Windows XP Pro SP3 32-bit OEM. Firefox upgrades from v.3.5 onward do not work on the Limited User Accounts on this laptop. The User Profiles always become corrupted, resulting in missing or distorted menus, the browser frame not rendering correctly, or other loss of functions. This time around, with v.4.0, the FEBE Extension no longer works, not even their newest Beta version. So I could not restore my profiles from backups. :mad:For me, this was the last straw:mad:. But there was worse to come. Extensions which lengthen short urls (like bit.ly) no longer work. And privacy and security Extensions have been compromised or don’t work at all. IE rendering Extensions are not available or work entirely wrong. I haven’t dumped Firefox 4 on this computer yet, but I am in a mood to do just that sooner rather than later.

I can no longer recommend Firefox to anyone. Since Version 3.5, Mozilla has been going increasingly off the rails with Personas replacing Themes, and useless clutter seems to be the order of the day in the browser toolbars. I would sooner recommend and use Google Chrome, despite its privacy concerns and dearth of Extensions, than to use or recommend Firefox anymore.

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On a happier note, I found this article at Microsoft Social Answers, regarding that pesky KB 2393802 patch. This is a system kernel-level patch, and what goes wrong is a result of two issues. One is drivers — going to the official Intel web site and getting driver updates is a first step in managing the installation of this patch. The other issue is with OEM Windows installations and their system files, which may be specially modified by the computer manufacturer. The Microsoft Social Answers thread, which is in response to Susan Bradley’s advice there, gives instructions for manually downloading and installing the patch in Windows Safe Mode with a parameter to overwrite OEM files. The combination of updating Intel drivers and manually installing the patch with a forced overwrite, worked for me on this laptop.

I caution everyone, there is a reason Microsoft wrote this patch (and a few previous patches) so as not to overwrite OEM system kernel files. If your computer manufacturer has any modified custom files in their OEM and you overwrite these files with generic patched Microsoft files, your graphics (or something else) may no longer function. BSOD or worse could result. So I got lucky and nothing went seriously wrong as long as my Intel drivers were updated. But even the act of updating to generic Intel drivers can cause the same issues as overwriting OEM system kernel files. Do these things at your own risk!

-- rc primak

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