Newsletter Archives

• When is a system beyond repair?

  Posted on March 11, 2024 at 02:41 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  PATCH WATCH

  

  By Susan Bradley

  I’m giving up. I hate giving up.

  It annoys me, but I’m giving up on repairing operating systems. Why? Because we’ve reached the point where an operating system can become so damaged that not only can we not fully identify the cause, but also the system cannot be repaired with the tools provided for that purpose.

  There’s a reason I’m in this state of mind.

  The other day, someone in the forums asked me to start a section of Patch Watch to track those updates that did this kind of damage to the extent that the system became unbootable. But here’s the thing: no update is designed to make systems unbootable.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.11.0, 2024-03-11).

  Patch Watch Device Manager, DISM, KB5001716, KB5034441, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Registry cleaners, SFC, System File Checker, VMWare, vSphere

• Office updates fail … and fail, and fail

  Posted on January 6, 2020 at 01:10 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  LANGALIST

  By Fred Langa

  Hard-to-remove “stealth DLLs” and other leftover components of a previous software installation can break Windows Update.

  Here’s how to completely remove those errant bits, breaking the never-ending cycle of never-succeeding updates.

  Plus: A reader seeks fully hands-off automation for applying the “80/20 battery charge” rule.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.1.0 (2020-01-06).

  LangaList Application uninstalls, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Battery management, Registry cleaners, Windows reset