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Sorry Microfix, that comment just got me going.  Did not get WUMT fixed yet but may try your suggestion.  Eveyone in the Office is used to using WUMT.  Nonetheless, I have already dowloaded the WUMgr zip file if I can’t get the other going.  Thanks.

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Microfix

We are using a slightly older version on all our machines,  Windows Update Agent version: 19041.546 on 20H2 Pro.  Where can I find the newer version?  Thanks.

Wow, I can’t believe its already 25 years, I was a kid back then.  I ran my first 3D games on Win95,  Wolfenstein, Eye of the Beholder series, Wizardry and Doom.  Remember how much fun it was to install new MSI programs which were reasonably reliable with an actual README FILE where you never had to go online to learn how to run the program because the instructions came with the disc.  No click-to-run garbage that is always broken and needs constant patching and requires you to be tethered online all the time.   Win 95/ 98 all the way to Win7 had customizable WELCOME SOUNDS like START, LOGON and LOGOFF sounds that you can NO longer customize with Win10.  Microsoft abandoned those options since they thought it was not necessary for people to customize those things, they know better!

We still use an old Dell  Win98 SE with a Voodoo 5 5500 video and Sound Blaster sound card to mainly run inventory software and make backup files on DVDs and it even has the full Office 97 Pro and Power DVD which all still work great.  It boots up with the original microsoft welcome sound and is totally realiable, never breaks and never needs updating and patching.  It also meets the ENERGY STAR requirements since it barely uses any electricity.   Of course that old machine was taken off the internet many years ago but it still proves to  me that Microsoft was more reliable back then and that they once cared about the home and small business user, when times were much simpler.

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SueW, wavy, Fred, Cybertooth, Biiljoy

THanks @b I tried to use the FIX IT FOR ME and the page says Microsoft Easy Fix solutions have been discontinued and they suggest to upgrade. As for using the GROUP POLICY to fix this it is more then I have ever tinkered with in there and don’t want to mess anything. This just is not a coincidence!

I tried to run the ACTIVATE WINDOW link in PROPERTIES and my browser opened up saying that the MICROSOFT PAGE THAT I AM LOOKING FOR DOES NOT EXIST. So there is no way to activate Windows 7 anymore by anyone. Any Ideas? Did Microsoft just disable my Windows 7 before end of life?

Was using McAfee with Win7 for many years on 3 PCs and around 2016 from time to time would get major upgrades from McAfee which started crashing Win7 and sometimes reboot would fail ending with black screens with a flashing curser so I had to look at other options. Nonetheless, I am very grateful that PKCano suggested that I try Microsoft Security Essentials.  We have never had any problems with viruses or any malware, in my opinion it protects your PC as well as any 3rd party antivirus.  It has no bloatware in it which mostly duplicates what Windows already does and it works seamlessly with Windows 7 and it never bothers you with popups that you have to close all the time.  It is very similar to Windows Defender in Win10.  Defender in Win10 never bothers you with popups either.   Don’t use Defender in Win7 it is not a full securtiy suite.   I think that you will like Security Essentials for Windows 7 until EOL, its easy to use and up to now about 4 years for us it has been very reliable.  I have to admit Microsoft really got this one RIGHT.  Microsoft will stop supporting  Security Essentials when they stop supporting Windows 7, so its likely that you will have look for 3rd party security suites if there are any or take the nightmarish Win10 plunge.    GOOD LUCK.

Have been fortunate, none of my Win7 boxes received 1.289.15121.0 definitions.  Scans work just fine, somehow they must have skipped that corrupt release.  Am now at 1.289.1588.0 with no problems. Security Essentials has never given us any problems up to now, feel for those who got the bad update.

Have never had problems with .NET Framework patches before and have never uninstalled a .NET patch for any reason being that MS once had reliable and safe patching. When WinUpdate first offered Kb4340556 it was unchecked. Yesterday it was checked and I was not worried about installing it, did the deed and we have not had any issues opening any programs up to now. That being said, with this new post and MS admitting they really messed up, I am not sure if I should go ahead and uninstall or leave it be. Am wondering if problems will start creeping up later. Any thoughts? KB338818 remains unchecked however.

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geekdom

Thanks Woody, BobbyB and AlexEiffel, agree with what you say.   Microsoft also fails to realize that not everyone has really high speed internet.   We have marginal dsl in our area and it takes almost 4 hours to download everytime we upgrade to a new version of Win10 and then all the installation time and finger crossing hoping that I won’t end up with a BSOD.   That’s not a normal experience for upgrading.  82 minutes for version 1703, really???    Some of you on this forum have high speed that I can only dream about and  I believe only at those speeds that you can update quickly.   I consider these upgrades SERVICE PACKS like the previous Win upgrades even if Microsoft has moved away from calling it that.   Having these so-called upgrades every 6 months is ridiculous.  One begs to ask, what is wrong with Win10 that it has to be upgraded so often?   Just my opinion.  When we intalled SP1 on Win7 or the upgrade to Win8.1 that was the only time we had to worry about some downtime.   Having to deal with this approximately every 6 months and resetting all my settings is just a lot of wasted time and unecessary trouble.   These version upgrades appear as only being marginal in the usefulness of the OS.   There are some people that I know that are almost 40 miles from a com hub and are unable to even get dsl.    All they can get is Dial-up, yes I said dial-up from the dino days.    Their solution is to drive once a month with the home pc to town and update the machine at a computer store.   Sounds silly but its true.   With Win7 for those who did not upgrade to 10, its still possible to update on dial-up.  Should of stayed with Win7.  They are expecting new fibre optic lines in two years, yah right!!!   How are people stuck in those situations supposed to deal with Win10 and its intense need for extremely high speed internet in the meantime?    These Win10 upgrades are okay if you live in a city or a nearby town where real high speed internet is available.   Even with our dsl we only do one PC at a time so as to not have the all the PCs unusable for the whole day.   One nice feature about 1709 is that you can choose how much download bandwidth Windows can use for updates.  When Delivery Optimization was running even with the DUMMY slider turned off, under Choose How Updates are Delivered, it used all the bandwidth with none left to use on the network with no one able to go online.   As such, upgrading Win10 in those circumstance costs customers loads of time and money with no real advantage over older OSs.

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fk5353, Great Lake Bunyip, flackcatcher, Bill C., AlexEiffel, Elly, BobbyB, AJNorth, Cybertooth

@PKCano

Okay, I think that I am losing it!  You are correct it was REGEDIT.    Its been awhile.  All set to go.  I am trying to restore my welcome sounds for logon and logoff as I have in Win7 & 8.    Microsoft was always good for that, going back to Win95.   It was really part of their trademark in my opinion.   All we hear now is the Win7 sound when booting and that’s it, no customizable logon/logoff, Windows start or Windows exit sounds anymore.  I read an article last year that MS was trying to speed up boot time.   Well I can wait three to five seconds for a sound to play.    Will try a few things but suspect MS won’t let me use this PC the way I want to use it.  Thanks for your patience.

@PKCano

Using GPEdit.  I am looking at it right now, the window title at the top is Local Group Policy Editor.

UPDATE:  Just letting everyone know that February 13, 2018—KB4074598 (Monthly Rollup) installed perfectly with no problems.   As PKCano indicated, the February update would contain everything from the January update and more, so we will not be missing anything.   Thanks again for the advice and best wishes.

@ PKCano

Good News Update.   I did as you said running MCPR as admin in Safe Mode and it actually did something.  An error message popped up saying “Incomplete Uninstallation” and that was all.   Restarted, checked services and mcafee/firewall core service, service controller and validation trust protection are all gone.   Looked up Program Files\Common Files\mcafee\systemcore folder that was created on the day that I uninstalled McAfee and it is gone as well.   MCPR in safe mode did the trick.   Its really surprising how fast this Dell boots up now with MSE.   Many thanks for your help and best wishes.

@ PKCano
Okay after having more problems with mcafee while installing updates would just hang and make win explorer unusable.  When restarting pc would freeze enven when using an earlier restore point, so had to uninstall in safe mode.   Wasted a whole day.     Uninstalled as per instructions from mcafee. They say to run the MS add/remove programs then to run MCPR if necessary, so I did just in case.   When running Add/Remove programs, a mcafee window pops up with two checkboxes where I checked both to remove ALL of mcafee components and it worked okay.    When running MCPR it would ask for validation then launch until it timed out.   As such it was not doing anything.   So I gave up.   Intalled MSE without any problems and turned on Windows Firewall.   My PC boots twice as fast now without all the bloatware.

Nonetheless, I was looking through the Resource Monitor and saw that there were 3 mcafee programs running.   Further investigation led to me finding a new folder created the same day and time that I uninstalled mcafee.   I found Program Files\Common Files\mcafee\systemcore.    In msconfig the three files running are mcafee/firewall core service, service controller and validation trust protection.  When I uncheck these in services and click apply the checkmarks return.   Tried to  run MCPR again, but it just times out.   Mcafee is just clinging on and won’t let go!     I read many threads on the subject and it seems that there is no workaround unless you install new removal programs and even then those don’t work.  In the meantime I blocked access to the network with WinFirewall.  I can’t even delete or move the flotsam folder (systemcore) to the recycle bin and its my pc and I am the admin.    Any ideas?  Thanks.

@PhotM

Just letting you know that I had given up on trying to upgrade from 1511 to 1607 and I really appreciated all your help and suggestions. I had given up, so many wasted hours. I decided to wait until the Creator upgrade came out. Downloaded the new version today, disabled Windows Defender just in case and it installed in about an hour. That was really fast. I was expecting the same old. I got a windows popup saying Welcome to Windows 10 asking me to choose new settings and that was it. I thought I was dreaming so checked winver and sure enough I now have version 1703 OS Build 15063.250!!!! Microsoft finally got their act together. It was the cr**py anniversary edition installer that was the problem not my PC. Best wishes.

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