SP4 question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Branden Wolner
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Branden Wolner

If I install win2k sp4, will it remove all the uninstall directories in c:
\winnt for the pre-sp4 hotfixes? Or do I need to remove them manually? And
how do I know which I can remove and which not to remove?

Thanks.
 
Well I think you can do this. Install SP4. Then use qfecheck to determine
what Hotfixes are still installed in the system. Then those pre-Sp4
uninstall folders that correspond to NOT being in the qfecheck delete those.
At least move them but I believe you can delete them without issue. No it
doesn't look like those directories are being removed like they were in a
SP3 install.
 
When Microsoft gets a new Webmaster do a search on qfecheck. If you get
nothing you'll have to wait till Microsoft hires a competant Webmaster.
Sorry I can't do much about the issues at Microsoft since this worm was
released into the wild.
 
George Hester wrote in
Well I think you can do this. Install SP4. Then use qfecheck to
determine what Hotfixes are still installed in the system. Then
those pre-Sp4 uninstall folders that correspond to NOT being in
the qfecheck delete those. At least move them but I believe you
can delete them without issue. No it doesn't look like those
directories are being removed like they were in a SP3 install.
Click to expand...

Same here. The backup directories were not removed for superceeded
(included in SP4) Hotfixes after SP4 installation.

Also, SP4 seems to get them out of the registry and the Add/Remove
lists.

And an alternate is hfnetchk
http://hfnetchk.shavlik.com/default.asp
 
google whoops. Glad you found it. All good boys and girls have qfecheck in
%systemroot%\system32
 
"But _if_ qfecheck (which I don't use BTW) is only reporting dead files in
an obsolete backup location" - MV

No that is not what it is doing. You are misunderstanding what qfecheck is
telling you. Read the output carefully. It says, "Hotfixes Identified: -
Currently on System"

What that means is that qfecheck is reading the registry and determing what
is currently on the system. It then determines whether it is in a good
state or not. If it wasn't qfecheck wouuld tell you to reinstall the hotfix
(update).

hfnetchk cannot do this. All hfnetcheck does is use an xml file contacting
Microsoft to see if there are any updates to software which you currently
have installed. It tells you nothing specifically of what you have
installed. Now this is the free version maybe the one that costs bux does
something different. I do not know. qfecheck is free and tells you which
hotfixes you have installed and their current state; good or not.

These two (free ones) do very different things. And for the purposes of
what the OP asked for hfnetchk will not help.
 
George Hester wrote in
"But _if_ (which I don't use BTW) is only reporting dead
files in an obsolete backup location" - MV

No that is not what it is doing. You are misunderstanding what
qfecheck is telling you. Read the output carefully. It says,
"Hotfixes Identified: - Currently on System"

What that means is that qfecheck is reading the registry and
determing what is currently on the system. It then determines
whether it is in a good state or not. If it wasn't qfecheck
wouuld tell you to reinstall the hotfix (update).

hfnetchk cannot do this. All hfnetcheck does is use an xml file
contacting Microsoft to see if there are any updates to software
which you currently have installed. It tells you nothing
specifically of what you have installed. Now this is the free
version maybe the one that costs bux does something different. I
do not know. qfecheck is free and tells you which hotfixes you
have installed and their current state; good or not.

These two (free ones) do very different things. And for the
purposes of what the OP asked for hfnetchk will not help.
Click to expand...

Okay. I see concede your point.
Still, and this is theoretical, if SP4 removed all traces of Pre-SP4
hotfixes during installaion from the registry and replaced files used
by those Pre-SP4 hotfixs (as included in SP4), then the old \$*\
backups must be dead. IF that is the true case here I guess qfecheck
_would_ be reporting them as installed anyway due to the old backup
folders.

Reply not required and thanks for the info. I'll look into qfecheck
again. Hope I have not confused the issue for the OP too much!

PS my Shavic hfnetchk gets it's mssecure.xml directly from Shavic.
At one time those were not identical with the MS release although
that may no longer be true.
 
No problem. The qfecheck is really kind of lame. What it does is read this
key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Updates

Then it checks to make sure the installation is in good condition. If it is
not then it tells you you should reinstall the particular hotfix.

Now installing SP4 DOES remove these hotfix entries in this key and its
subkeys location. Then qfecheck knows nothing about the hotfix entries in
the key and its subkeys and so you will NOT get a readout for those fixes
(Keys) that the Service Pack removed. But that's what the OP wanted. All
he\she has to do is identify the uninstall folders he\she has in C:\WINNT
that qfecheck is not identifying and voila- those are the ones safe to
remove.

Now for the Million dollar question- Will I do that? Nope - they don't
bother me and we are talking what 5 MB of wasted space? I can live with
that. I'll just wait for Microsoft to do their job and develop a utility
that will safely remove them as they did but failed with consistency with
SP3. It was the consistency issue that I am sure caused them to not do it
in SP4. Consistency is an Engineering marvel and one that Microsoft has yet
to learn how to implement successfully. Likely will never happen for if
there is one thing PCs aren't and that is consistent.
 
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