Newsletter Archives

• Two more casualties in the ‘Unsupported hardware’ Kaby Lake/Ryzen Windows Update lockout

  Posted on April 27, 2017 at 13:29 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  There’s a report of a mis-identification for an older E3500 processor, and one blocked Windows Update for a guy who upgraded his video card.

  InfoWorld Woody on Windows

  UPDATE: I just got an email from DP who pointed me to this excellent discussion on the Intel forum, from a guy named Igor Levicki:

  Either Microsoft is lying, and Intel is effectively enabling that by staying silent, or Microsoft is telling the truth, and Intel is falsely advertising their new CPUs as 100% backward compatible. In both cases Intel’s behavior looks dishonest toward consumers and developers alike.

  Intel’s perspective is different from Microsoft’s. If you’re concerned about this situation, you should read that whole thread.

  ANOTHER UPDATE: Martin Brinkmann at gHacks has a great essay on the topic:

  Microsoft’s decision to block its customers from receiving updates on supported machines is as customer unfriendly as it gets especially since the block includes security updates and patches as well.

  Windows Patches/Security Kaby Lake, Ryzen, Windows 7 update

• Best way to get all the Group A patches applied

  Posted on December 3, 2016 at 13:05 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Good question from JC:

  I will appreciate very much your help in the steps I have to do to patch my windows 7×64 Home Premium and office 2007, which last patching update I made was in April 2015.

  Due to aggressive windows 10 campaign, recommendations of experts to stay in windows 7, and lastly, the change from Microsoft in patching left me wait thinking what to do.

  Now I see group A, group B and group W. I think you can only try group A or group W. As almost everybody says is better, in spite of disadvantages, to patch the O.S., I think is better for me to be in group A.

  I think, first I have to manually download the KB’s to speed up the windows update scans, and after I hope to receive the last monthly rollup update from November.

  I look forward hearing from you soon.

  Thanks and best regards.

  I certainly understand why you dropped out of the patching game last year – and think it’ll be very worthwhile to get patched up.

  If you’re in Group A – you don’t mind Microsoft’s snooping – the path to getting patched is remarkably simple (albeit time consuming).

  First, follow the steps to get Windows Update working quickly. You may have to manually download and install one or two patches.

  Then you need to decide if you want the “Recommended” updates or not. That’s a tough call, but if you haven’t hit any problems in the past 18 months, you’re probably just fine without the Recommended updates. On the other hand, if you want all that Microsoft has to give, turn Recommended updates on:  Start > Control Panel > System and Security > Windows Update. Click Change Settings. Check or uncheck the box “Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates.”

  Then, just let ‘er rip. Run Windows Update, have it check for updates, don’t change any of the check boxes – if a patch is checked, leave it checked; if it isn’t checked, don’t check it.

  You may have to run Windows Update and reboot a few times, but by the end you’ll have a completely up-to-date machine.

  Other Windows 7 update

• Windows 7 update success

  Posted on May 16, 2016 at 07:00 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  This in from Jim in Yakima (which is where I went to high school!):

  As you and untold numbers of other frustrated users have experienced, the Windows 7 update problems hit me last week. It’s taken a good part of three days to sort through this. Maybe I have; maybe not.

  I was able earlier today via Windows update to complete a manual search in 14 minutes. The ensuing download of 131Mb in 12 files (screenshot below) took 4 minutes. After the download was complete, install and reboot finished what we had come to expect as “normal”. It was so normal, I was surprised … particularly after reading the horror stories in recent posts. Quite a bit happened that took me to whatever point this is. Explanation below the second screenshot, which you’ll see shows all 24 installs today, not just 12.

  

  My two desktops (x64 Ult) have not had an update issue (last being May 10) and not a single failure in a long time. Hadn’t used the laptop for a couple months and it became the challenge. It’s x64 Home and set up similarly to the desktops. Update just ran until oblivion (my fuse is shorter than hours), so it was time to dig. All three are using WUA version 7.6.7600.320, so that wasn’t an issue. Search for solutions was on.

  

  Ran into a program, Autopatcher, that apparently has been around for quite a while. It’s one of the offline installers and the links to MS updates seem to be well-maintained. It will download all the MSUs that are applicable to your setup, as you specify. In my case, that was about 1.2Gb of MSUs. I reasoned that, if online updating was going to be a persistent pain, I’d download the bunch and install offline, but not using Autopatcher (it doesn’t do Office 2010+ updating among other things). It does download the MSUs (and EXEs) directly from MS servers (after the legal wrangling), so they are clean.** Those files check their integrity as they run, as well. I had everything I needed through the May 10 updates. Problem was, they wouldn’t run on that laptop. The installer hung, just like Windows update. Something was interfering with both offline and online updating.

  Downloaded and ran MS Fixit tool for Windows update which found and repaired registry entries related to the updater service. There was also some repair of the update datastore. When I saw “registry”, I thought “Okay, this could be it.” Restarted and then manually installed the 12 bottom updates that you see in the pic, among them KB3153199, with no problem. Now, if the MSUs will run, how about trying the regular route? Restarted and then ran Windows update. That’s when the other 12 popped up in short order. Did any of the first 12 updates play a role in this surprise? I tend to think not. When I see registry and datastore (EDB file) repair, that’s primary.

  Maybe the Fixit tool does the job (it may need to be run more than once; I did and attribute success to it), maybe it was a KB, or maybe the janitor hit the turbo button on the MS TRS-80 servers.

  Now it’s time to run the backup.

  Jim in Yakima

  ** Autopatcher designates Windows updates into “Critical” (security) and “NonCritical categories. I found no evidence of GWX updates, so I suspect the developer blacklists those. I don’t endorse Autopatcher, which does not require installation, but I was happy to let it download all those updates for me.

  ps – Taking the circuitous path that I did with collecting MSUs via Autopatcher is not something I’d recommend … for nearly all users. The normal update process (when it works) is best.

  pps – Wish I knew what the corrupted registry entries were. Fixit just “fixes it” without a log that I’ve seen. What I’d like to discern is, “how did this occur?”

  ppps – I use a “secondary” program, Windows Update Notifier, developed for Windows 8 (because it doesn’t have a notification icon, or such?). It also works on Windows 7, even though it’s not necessary. In my trials over the last couple days, WUN wasn’t getting through to the MS servers, either. That’s when I knew it was a client-side problem.

  Windows Patches/Security Autopatcher, Windows 7 update

• Windows 7 update still a problem

  Posted on May 16, 2016 at 05:25 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Michael Horowitz comes to the same conclusion we all have been confronting. Very happy to see this go more mainstream.

  Windows Update on Windows 7 is still a problem

  Computerworld

  Windows Patches/Security Windows 7 update

• Possible fix for the abysmally slow Windows 7 update scans?

  Posted on April 14, 2016 at 10:58 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  I’m getting reports from several readers that there may be a solution to the slow Windows 7 update scan problem I chided Microsoft about yesterday.

  Geoff King posted the approach that seems to be working:

  Microsoft also has the very powerful Fix It Tool 50202 that completely reinstalls Windows Update components. This one is especially helpful in cases where Windows Update is not able to check for updates (for example, error 800700C1) or installs the same updates all over again (several cases with infinite loops of .NET Framework updates).

  Because Microsoft just loves to move the tool randomly around (and its site search is not helpful either), I now provide direct download link to Fix It Tool 50202. Please save the file, do not run it automatically!

  https://www.winhelp.us/files/MicrosoftFixit50202.msi

  It speeded things up for me and download and install only took around 10 minutes.

  I hope the tool works for you, too.

  If you’re uncomfortable running a Fixit from a non-Microsoft site, I see that the same Fixit is currently available from KB 971058.

  Could ya’ll give it a try and see if it works? Let me know here how things go, please.

  Windows Patches/Security Fixit 50202, Windows 7 update

• It’s time for Microsoft to fix glacial Windows 7 updates

  Posted on April 13, 2016 at 14:37 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  MS did it three years ago with Windows XP. Time to do it again.

  InfoWorld Woody on Windows

  Windows Patches/Security Windows 7 update