Replies

Mark,
Thanks so much for you very good input! Is it possible or have you seen anywhere that Micorsoft had made any of the Media Center individual components of Media Center available when it first came out as like an Upgrade, Update or trial?? As you say, it’s XP Home with stuff added to it, so in view of that I was wondering if MAYBE the guy that built my machine added something from Media Center to my XP Home OS? Is there anyway you can possibly check with Microsoft and see if they ever had a download of some sort of the components for Media Center available?? I’d REALLY appreciate that if there was some way you could fine out from MS as you are a WMVP they might be more willing to share info with you. Would you please try to find this out for me because I truly believe that is what this guy did thinking he was enhancing my OS. I can’t get in touch with him as he has skipped town as of a year ago. My Full Version of XP HOME EDITION is just that, but it’s an OEM version. If you have a computer business you can buy the OEM version CD instead of the Retail version which is significantly cheaper. I wondered how he sold me a full version for $150!!

BTW, Nvidia does in fact have two driver downloads for XP Home and Windows XP Media Center Edition. The XP Home Edition driver version number is 53.03 the driver version for Media Center is 53.04. As I said though I’ve always installed XP Home Edition drivers and apps and haven’t had any problems. I’d just love to know if MS did in fact make any of Media Centers stuff downloadable, because as I said I really believe this guy would do something like that if he thought it would enhance the OS. He’s the kind of guy that tries to impress people by doing stuff like this.

If you please try to find out if any of the Media Center components were downloadable as a trial or as an add-on that would really mean a lot to me. Thank you so much once again Mark for your input as well as all the other help you give to this list………that’s pretty darn nice of you and I for one really appreciate that!!

Thank you kindly,
JeffT

John, thanks very much for the reply. I have searched every place I know to see if I can find whether Windows XP Media Center Edition is in any other boot path or system information anywhere. System Properties and MS Config Boot.ini is the only two places I can see it. The thing I’d like to know is where it came from and what it’s doing to my machine. Remember, I purchase a full version of Windows XP Home Edition instead of an upgrade from Win98 to avoid problems. As I found out later this builder of my custom machine was buying OEM installation disc instead of Retail versions. It’s always nice to find this stuff out after the fact, eh?

Even in System Information under System Tools says I have Windows XP Home loaded as my OS. As I said I’d like to know where it came from and what it’s doing to my machine. I had my version of XP before SP1 was even out. I downloaded SP1 about a week after I got my new machine. If anyone of you guys/girls could tell me what XP Media Center actually does would be helpful. All I know or could find out is that it’s an OS all of it’s own supposedly on a specific PC built for it, right? If anyone can shed any light on this I’d really be thankful because I haven’t any idea what’s going on here or how it got partially loaded onto my PC. Thanks again John and to anyone who can please try and help me.

JeffT

John, thanks very much for the reply. I have searched every place I know to see if I can find whether Windows XP Media Center Edition is in any other boot path or system information anywhere. System Properties and MS Config Boot.ini is the only two places I can see it. The thing I’d like to know is where it came from and what it’s doing to my machine. Remember, I purchase a full version of Windows XP Home Edition instead of an upgrade from Win98 to avoid problems. As I found out later this builder of my custom machine was buying OEM installation disc instead of Retail versions. It’s always nice to find this stuff out after the fact, eh?

Even in System Information under System Tools says I have Windows XP Home loaded as my OS. As I said I’d like to know where it came from and what it’s doing to my machine. I had my version of XP before SP1 was even out. I downloaded SP1 about a week after I got my new machine. If anyone of you guys/girls could tell me what XP Media Center actually does would be helpful. All I know or could find out is that it’s an OS all of it’s own supposedly on a specific PC built for it, right? If anyone can shed any light on this I’d really be thankful because I haven’t any idea what’s going on here or how it got partially loaded onto my PC. Thanks again John and to anyone who can please try and help me.

JeffT

kaplinb,
So basically you’re telling me to forget these two patches and just take reasonable precautions…….right? kaplinb I really appreciate you input and help. I can’t understand why MS can’t get these patches right can you?? Look at how the messed this 811493 patch up the first time with the peformance hit? When I ran Windows Update and saw the same number reappear I immediately came to Woody’s lounge to see what you guys had to say about it. I’ll definitely hold off until you guys tell me other wise for sure and thanks so much for helping me. I wish I knew half of what you know about computers, but I’ve been a mechanic all my life and didn’t get into computers till ’95. Oh well, live and learn, eh?

Thanks again,
JeffT

Stuart,
When I try to use my Scheduled Task program and I enter all the proper info PWs, my account and what task I get an error message that states Object Already Exist 0x800900F Then when I click on ok I get another message that states General Page Initializtion Failed program may not run. Do you have any idea what in the world is going on with my Scheduled Task program? I’ve just been ignoring it and running all my stuff manually. On another note and maybe this will help give you more info….. when you do the cleanmgr /sageset to set the files you want cleanup mgr. to clean on your disk it won’t show me ALL the files when it list the default window for the C: drive. However if I type cleanmgr /sageset:99 or some number at the end that doesn’t indicate the C: drive it does show me all the files. Any ideas what is going on here? Like I said this has been so frustrating I’ve just been ignoring it and cleaning my disk manaully as well as doing my Task manaully.

I’d really appreaciate any input from anybody if anybody’s ever heard of such craziness. I hope I’m not upsetting anyone with all my beginner type questions, but when things don’t follow the common sense base line I get lost really quick. Thank you or anyone else that can point me in the right direction.

Regards,
JeffT

Kaplinb,
You were exactly right, Nero’s latest upgrade 551028 just upgraded my latest Nero program. I did the regedit and found only one entry which proves I didn’t lose the 33mb as you said I didn’t. I did a lot a looking and I fumbled across what has caused my problem of showing these Icons in Remove/Add programs in control panel. My system when I first got it was a dual boot system with Windows 98 and Full version of Home XP. If you look at Microsoft bulletin 286731 it states that any program that was entered while you had a dual boot system then remove Win98 that this very thing that I have WILL happen. Even my Tweak UI for XP is there on my desktop as a Shortcut and is in ADD/Remove, but I can’t remove the thing or do anything with it. Same as my Micorsoft Basline Security Analyzer. I went into regedit and deleted every possible key I could find for it and when I try to reinstall it I get an error message stating that there already is a version of this program on my machine which we know is incorrect…..the ONLY thing I have left is the line in ADD/Remove programs. Apparently this is enough to make it think that it’s still on my machine. I wish I knew where this Icon file was located for ADD/Remove because I could simply remove the Icons and reinstall the programs. As I said because of this I can’t even reinstall MSBA because it “thinks” the program is loaded. I thought it would simply overwrite the program, but it won’t.

Kaplinb, THANK YOU so much for taking you time to help me. If you have any other ideas were I can delete these Icons from please let me know. However once you read the Service Bulletin I believe you’ll agree with me that the programs aren’t installed and I just have false Icons that won’t permit me to reinstall like MSBA or Tweakie UI. BTW, I’m sorry I haven’t responded before now, but I’ve been very sick. I just got out of the hospital again yesterday. Your help is GREATLY appreciated because when you’re very sick things like this become a much bigger issue because you can’t think like you used to and for this I wish to express much gratitude to you and the guys/gals on this list that have helped me now and in the past. If anybody knows where MS has these Icons hide please drop me a line if you would.

Thank you kindly,
JeffT

Kaplinb,
You were right on target with your info. The only way however I can restore the Change/Remove option is to reload the program itself. For instance I have Nero CD burner software. The copy I had loaded when I lost my pointers now only states how often I use it less the option of Change/Remove is GONE! Then I downloaded the upgrade that’s available (it’s actually the exact same that I had I keep them up to date) I now have two copies of the program. I guess I’d be smart to remove the one that I can because it eats up 33mb of disc space and I have a 20G hhd. I do have SP1 loaded and just like you said the APPWIZ.CPL is in ALL the places you said it would be once I uncheck “Show hidden filesand folders”. I’m wondering what the smart move is about the duplicate software? Would you remove the copy of the one you can or would you leave it so if you wanted to you could remove it at a later date for some reason. Please let me know what you’d do if this was your machine and thank you once again for the great help.

JeffT

Cowboy,
No, I’m saying that ALL of my programs in Control Panels ADD/Remove programs has lost their pointers that permits you to remove/add a program like it used to. Now If you click on what’s left it highlights it and tells you how often you use the program like “Rarely” “sometimes” or some BS like that. I did what YOU told me to do and did the search with Appwiz.cpl in both boxes and it found NO results. Then I added *.* to each box and it filled the page so I knew you didn’t want me to do that. I also did the seach on my C: drive which has to be the drive because that’s all I have. Cowboy if you have anymore ideas how to get these back I’d sure apprecite it because a lot of my programs have had updates done to the drivers and would be a real @#$!% to look up the original drivers and reload EVERYTHING once again. However, when I did do this to the more current stuff it did re-install the ADD/Remove option to the program just like it did before I installed that dang patch! I noticed most of you are using Pro where I am using Home Edition XP.

BTW I took Hans advice and installed the fix for 328310 and 814995 and don’t seem to have any problems for now. Thanks for digging for me guys I feel much better doing this when you all tell me that it’s ok to do this because I’ve really lost confidence in MS and their PATCH system! If anyone has anymore ideas with out me having to do a Repair install over my existing XP program I’d much rather do that for sure ……….thanks so much once again ……………..Jeff T

I just wanted to say a BIG thank you to all of you guys who helped with this problem of Q811493. I’m sure ALL of you know how much it upsets a guy to download a MS patch only to find that it gives you machine a real performance hit when it was working so good! All of you (including myself) worked together to get to the bottom of this and find the truth out. Since I’ve removed 811493 I’m very happy once again. We sure have a good bunch of fellows on here and I really value your inputs to say the least! Thanks again to all who helped!

Regards,
JeffT.

I just wanted to say a BIG thank you to all of you guys who helped with this problem of Q811493. I’m sure ALL of you know how much it upsets a guy to download a MS patch only to find that it gives you machine a real performance hit when it was working so good! All of you (including myself) worked together to get to the bottom of this and find the truth out. Since I’ve removed 811493 I’m very happy once again. We sure have a good bunch of fellows on here and I really value your inputs to say the least! Thanks again to all who helped!

Regards,
JeffT.

Joe,
I’ll be darned, that was the one alright. As soon as I uninstalled it, rebooted it’s running like ‘er oldself again! Thanks Joe for the help very much. I must admit though, between the two updates I would have bet (obviously) that the other more complex update was the bad guy. Oh well, I’m happy now and thanks to all for your inputs!
JeffT

Dave,
MInes XP Home, what do you think about what Michael suggest about running Sig Verify tool? Please let me know if you would……..

Jeff

Subject: slow in execution
From: “tom foley” Sent: 4/18/2003 10:24:50 AM

I have a real quick question, this is out of curiosity
more than anything.
On April 16, 2003 I installed the “Catalog Database
Corruption” update in my Windows XP Pro. After installing
the update Q817287 it takes longer for my programs to start than
before the installation. Can anyone shed any light as to
why this is happening.
BTW, I have plenty of resources, so I know it’s not that
and I haver not installed any programs after the
installation of the update.

Tom
.

Guys,
I went over to MS customer support forum and found another guy that’s complaining of a performance hit after installing Q817287! This blows my mind! Doesn’t MS test this patches before they send them out?? Anyway, I thought you’d like to see this isn’t a individual case. If ANYONE can come up with an idea how to get rid of this piece of crap I’d be VERY happy. So if anyone comes up with something please let me know. BTW, does Woody ever read this stuff? Just wondering?

Thanks again,
JT

Michael & Al,
Thanks for the reply, BUT I believe I did good by posting this to the Lounge. The one is in ADD/REMOVE programs AL which is the 811493, however, the one Michael printed out the bad news on is the one that screwed up my machine big time which is the Q817287 unremovable Update. I did find it in the Registry, exported both keys to my backup file, then deleted the keys in the Registry. I then went into System32 and renamed CatRoot and CatRoot2 to different names as well as deleted the WUTEMP file. After doing all this I went back to Windows Update and scanned my machine and it showed that the da#@# things were still in there and active!

If Woody or someone can come up with a fix I sure would appreciate it VERY much. What it acts like is that it’s reading EVERYTHING from Virtual Memory because you can hear the HDD grinding away everytime you load a application. Once it’s loaded one time it will reload pretty fast then. Does this help any??

I believe I did all the steps to get rid of this un-removable Update, haven’t I? Thanks very much to both of you for your replies. I would strongly encourage anyone to hold off on installing this ‘degrade’ Upgrade until like Mike said it’s fleshed out a bit more. PLEASE keep me posted if you guys have anymore ideas.

Thanks so much for trying!

JeffT

Kip,
When I’ve tried to run “TroubleShooter” it shows No error message!?!?! This is what’s so frustrating about this problem and the fact it’s so inconsistent. The next time it happens I will try and run “Trouble Shooter” again and see if gives me an error message of some sort.. Thanks for the reply……

JeffT.