WU Woes

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roger Fink
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Roger Fink

I just visited Windows Update as I do every week or so to see if there were
any new manual updates available. I'm up to date except for their
anti-spyware engine, which they deem "critical" and I deem "optional at
best". Anyway, this is what greeted me:

"We've made improvements to our website. To download the new version of the
software and begin using Windows Update, please click Install Now."

Uh huh. OK, let's see...W2k is on "end of life life-support" and Microsoft,
with little to worry about and not much else on its plate these days, has
decided to coerce its legacy OS users into a download that they refuse to
explain the purpose of as a precondition to receiving future updates, all of
which will no doubt be security fixes.

Somebody please tell me, just what new feature do it they want to install,
or what existing feature do they want to break, on my computer?
 
I've just been to the WU site and was offered an update to something I
installed last week, but I did not get the message you report. (I also
ignore the anti-spyware tool.)

Assuming that you're on SP4, I think this probably means that I've already
installed whatever it's offering you. Is it possible that you have an
older version of Windows Update or Windows Installer?

Are you faced with the chioce of clicking "Install Now" or not continuing?
What I'd do in such a situation is to make a complete image backup of my
system and then return to WU and click the button to see what happens.


Roger Fink said:
I just visited Windows Update as I do every week or so to see if there were
any new manual updates available. I'm up to date except for their
anti-spyware engine, which they deem "critical" and I deem "optional at
best". Anyway, this is what greeted me:
Click to expand...
"We've made improvements to our website. To download the new version of the
software and begin using Windows Update, please click Install Now."
Click to expand...
 
Unless something has been added within the last couple of days, I'm all
caught up except for their antispyware app, which I decline by choice.
Obviously I update manually, people who elect to accept whatever Microsoft
deems critical may have had the "website improvement" installed and not be
aware of it, since the "improvement" may not have a graphical component. Or,
if you have every critical update installed then perhaps the message I got
won't appear until you need another WU download from the site.

With GoBack installed it's easy to revert out of one of these updates
whether or not it's uninstallable, but the bottom line for me is that I'm
not going to accept any updates until I understand what it is they are
offering here. Old habits die hard - mine and theirs.

I'm about ten seconds away from the Software Evil Empire rant so I'll stop
here.
 
I just reread your post. Since you use manual update, and have at least one
outstanding critical update in the queue, I have no idea why you did not
receive the same message I did.
 
The problem is solved, though not explained.
I just this minute tried WU again, and it worked absolutely normally.
 
Ah, then it's clearly the Microsoft random page shuffle at work. They
seem to tinker with the site constantly, and most of the changes are not
for the better. With a lot of careful work and some trial and error, they
can usually manage to leave things alomst not quite worse than before they
started.
 
Well I'm glad it's the shuffler and not the shufflee. I was beginning to
think I was delusional.
 
Roger,

Not to butt in, but, how do you know that they don't plant code in any
of these hotpatches. There is no way to know all together, unless there
is something I am unaware of, like a secret society that can break all
their code down, and make sure that it's "relatively" benign from even
the personal privacy viewpoint. [index.dat, hosts, etc.] (end)

dc


| Well I'm glad it's the shuffler and not the shufflee. I was beginning
to
| think I was delusional.
|
| Gary Smith wrote:
| > Ah, then it's clearly the Microsoft random page shuffle at work.
They
| > seem to tinker with the site constantly, and most of the changes are
| > not for the better. With a lot of careful work and some trial and
| > error, they can usually manage to leave things alomst not quite
worse
| > than before they started.
| >
|
|
 
My reply sounded rather harsh. Sorry, wasn't meant to be. I've often
wondered just what it is that they are injecting. Call it paranoid, but
M$ has a history of doing stuff to the OS to serve their own purpose.

Sorry again for the way that I came off.
dc


| Well I'm glad it's the shuffler and not the shufflee. I was beginning
to
| think I was delusional.
|
| Gary Smith wrote:
| > Ah, then it's clearly the Microsoft random page shuffle at work.
They
| > seem to tinker with the site constantly, and most of the changes are
| > not for the better. With a lot of careful work and some trial and
| > error, they can usually manage to leave things alomst not quite
worse
| > than before they started.
| >
|
|
 
dc said:
My reply sounded rather harsh. Sorry, wasn't meant to be. I've often
wondered just what it is that they are injecting. Call it paranoid,
but M$ has a history of doing stuff to the OS to serve their own
purpose.

Sorry again for the way that I came off.
dc
Click to expand...
I didn't find it harsh, just unenlightening.
 
Gary said:
I've just been to the WU site and was offered an update to something I
installed last week, but I did not get the message you report. (I
also ignore the anti-spyware tool.)
Click to expand...
[snip]

OT-

You may ignore it, but, guess what, you've already downloaded it, and I'll
bet run it at least once, as this semi-buried item on the Microsoft site
revealed I have done:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891716/

Under FAQ 2 you are presented with the registry entries you can check to see
a) if it's installed, and b) if its been run.

They forgot to mention the name of the executable file.
 
Gary said:
I've just been to the WU site and was offered an update to something I
installed last week, but I did not get the message you report. (I
also ignore the anti-spyware tool.)
[snip]
Click to expand...
OT-
Click to expand...

You may ignore it, but, guess what, you've already downloaded it, and I'll
bet run it at least once, as this semi-buried item on the Microsoft site
revealed I have done:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891716/
Click to expand...

Under FAQ 2 you are presented with the registry entries you can check to see
a) if it's installed, and b) if its been run.
Click to expand...
They forgot to mention the name of the executable file.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I do have such an entry, and the value named Version
contains 4066DA74-2DDE-4752-8186-101A7C543C5F, which according to the
article identifies release August 2005 A. I may have intentionally run
the progam back then. That's long enough ago that it could easily escape
my rather porous memory.

It appears that the filename is either Windows-KB890830-V1.29.exe or
MRT.exe, the latter perhaps if it's been installed. Neither exists on my
system. Searching for files with names containing "mrt", I found
\WINNT\Debug\mrt.log, which begins:

Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool v1.7, August 2005
Started On Thu Aug 18 23:52:51 2005

so obviously the program has been executed once. I've been ignoring it
ever since, though.

KB890830 says in part, "Typically, when you run the Windows Malicious
Software Removal Tool, the tool creates a randomly named temporary
directory in the root drive of your computer. This directory will contain
several files and includes the Mrtstub.exe file. Most of the time, this
folder will be automatically deleted after the tool has finished running
or after the next restart. Sometimes, this folder may not be deleted
automatically. In these cases, this folder can be deleted manually and has
no adverse effect on the computer."

I take this to mean that the tools removes itself once it has done it's
job.
 
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