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Latest guidance re how to get updates



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 14th 18, 10:27 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
none[_10_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 15
Default Latest guidance re how to get updates

Got an Averatec 3150P laptop still running XP Pro after 15 years, maybe
because I only drag it out nowadays on or maybe shortly after Patch
Tuesday to see if it still boots up and can snag whatever updates are
available. I was doing this via the registry hack that spoofed XP
Imbedded and POSReady 2009 (the one that promised updates until next
year). This worked fine until some event-don't recall exactly what
now-prompted Microsoft to temporarily resume updating XP a little while
back. Last updates I successfully got were at the end of March (little
late updating that month and have slacked off since). Anyway, we're
back to the eternal "searching for updates" issue and Microsoft Security
Essentials, which HAD started working again, now won't update even after
searching overnight. Any ideas as to where I should go from here?
Really would like to get those last few months of updates that hack
promised.
  #2  
Old June 14th 18, 10:44 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
😉 Good Guy 😉
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,483
Default Latest guidance re how to get updates

On 14/06/2018 22:27, none wrote:
Got an Averatec 3150P laptop still running XP Pro after 15 years,
maybe because I only drag it out nowadays on or maybe shortly after
Patch Tuesday to see if it still boots up and can snag whatever
updates are available. I was doing this via the registry hack that
spoofed XP Imbedded and POSReady 2009 (the one that promised updates
until next year). This worked fine until some event-don't recall
exactly what now-prompted Microsoft to temporarily resume updating XP
a little while back. Last updates I successfully got were at the end
of March (little late updating that month and have slacked off
since). Anyway, we're back to the eternal "searching for updates"
issue and Microsoft Security Essentials, which HAD started working
again, now won't update even after searching overnight. Any ideas as
to where I should go from here? Really would like to get those last
few months of updates that hack promised.


Why bother with updates on that clunker. It is insecure as it is and no
amount of updates is going to secure it. Just use it and be happy until
you can afford to buy a new machine or until you drop dead.

You must be the oldest person on these newsgroups.

/--- This email has been checked for viruses by
Windows Defender software.
//https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/comprehensive-security/



--
With over 600 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

  #3  
Old June 15th 18, 12:44 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Latest guidance re how to get updates

none wrote:
Got an Averatec 3150P laptop still running XP Pro after 15 years, maybe
because I only drag it out nowadays on or maybe shortly after Patch
Tuesday to see if it still boots up and can snag whatever updates are
available. I was doing this via the registry hack that spoofed XP
Imbedded and POSReady 2009 (the one that promised updates until next
year). This worked fine until some event-don't recall exactly what
now-prompted Microsoft to temporarily resume updating XP a little while
back. Last updates I successfully got were at the end of March (little
late updating that month and have slacked off since). Anyway, we're
back to the eternal "searching for updates" issue and Microsoft Security
Essentials, which HAD started working again, now won't update even after
searching overnight. Any ideas as to where I should go from here? Really
would like to get those last few months of updates that hack promised.


I'm not set up for that particular combo (WinXP + WePOS),
but the Wsusoffline people had an approach for this.

For example, if updating Vista, they had a list of updates
that must be done first, to prevent Vista from "spinning".
This was the "wupre" list in their installer. Unfortunately,
the list was never developed for WinXP (52?). W60 or Vista
was the oldest supported. So I can't dig into the 9.2.4 legacy
version and pull that rabbit out of a hat.

http://download.wsusoffline.net/

ESR version

23.03.2018 Version 9.2.4

This is the kind of file you'd consult, but there
isn't one for WinXP.

wsusoffline\client\static\
StaticUpdateIds-wupre-w60.txt

*******

It's known that there are perhaps five things that drive
supersedence nuts on WinXP.

Kernel patches
GDI patches
ATM (adobe type manager) font rendering patches
Internet Explorer Cumulative Updates
(To a lesser extent, maybe Killbits)
MSRT monthly AV scanner, scans for top 50 pests

Each of these patch trees is deep, and the latest patch
supersedes a hundred patches before it. WU goes "exponential"
trying to work all of that out.

For example, all it would take is a freshly released
IE Cumulative to make WU spin in circles again.

As an example here, I can see that WePOS got an IE8 patch in
May2018. You'll notice the size is a fraction of the Windows 7
one, which is weird. Cumulative updates to Internet Explorer
usually involve a complete IE installer, which just installs
a fresh copy. That's what the ~50MB file would normally be doing.

https://s33.postimg.cc/6p2xtt9wf/catalog_server.gif

In terms of "spinning in circles" time saved, installing
the latest IE Cumulative, reduces the time to wait for the
Update List to appear by about 40%. There's still a significant
delay caused by the others. The first three items in the list,
cause madness.

The official download page for MSRT doesn't include WinXP coverage.
And the catalog server doesn't have "malicious software removal tool"
for Windows XP.

In any case, to stop the spinning, that's the basic theme.

*******

There is a scanner for making an update list. This does the
same thing as Windows Update, only with less spinning. If
this gave a list of 70 updates to do, about 68 of the updates
you'd *manually* download would install, and 2 updates would
refuse to install. That's because whatever method is used
here, isn't quite as thorough as the built-in WU method.
But this tool can also hint at things to install to stop
the spinning.

The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) 2.3 is available he

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/down...s.aspx?id=7558

This shows a picture of the MBSA dialog window, where you set
some tick boxes. First it downloads the wsusscn2.cab file
(200MB), then it works out updates. It only downloads
fresh copies of that file once a day, so if you do two runs
of MBSA in quick succession, the second run doesn't do a download.
The update numbers may help you identify which prerequisite
updates you need to stop the spinning.

http://s12.postimg.cc/4df2ka8bh/mbsa.gif

I've not tried that with the WePOS hack, and I don't
recollect seeing WePOS associated with MBSA. But, it's
something else you can try.

Vista is such a ******* at this stuff, that it took
me three tries in VM setups, with a cost of two solid
days of work each, before I could get a Vista update
window to appear. WinXP isn't quite as bad as Vista,
and if you wait long enough, that WU window will
appear. For the Vista case, it was the list of updates
to install in the "StaticUpdateIds-wupre-w60.txt" that
fixed the thing. So for Vista users, you do have a
chance to stop the spinning. But for WinXP, all we've
got is some "principles of operation" to work with,
to regain control.

I've wasted days and days on this stuff. I've worked
on WinXP and Vista multiple times. I've done Win7 and
Win8.1 runs. Windows 10 goes nuts, only once in a
blue moon, and resetting WU sometimes helps there.
Win7 and Win8.1 now use Cumulative Updates, and for
the most part, the spinning there is stopped (there is
work to do on a fresh install though). If you do a
fresh install of Vista today, you'd better have that
wupre file handy. For WinXP/WePOS, well, you're on your
own so to speak.

Good luck,
Paul
  #4  
Old June 15th 18, 11:50 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Latest guidance re how to get updates

none wrote:
Got an Averatec 3150P laptop still running XP Pro after 15 years, maybe
because I only drag it out nowadays on or maybe shortly after Patch
Tuesday to see if it still boots up and can snag whatever updates are
available. I was doing this via the registry hack that spoofed XP
Imbedded and POSReady 2009 (the one that promised updates until next
year). This worked fine until some event-don't recall exactly what
now-prompted Microsoft to temporarily resume updating XP a little while
back. Last updates I successfully got were at the end of March (little
late updating that month and have slacked off since). Anyway, we're
back to the eternal "searching for updates" issue and Microsoft Security
Essentials, which HAD started working again, now won't update even after
searching overnight. Any ideas as to where I should go from here? Really
would like to get those last few months of updates that hack promised.


I ran MBSA 2.3 and made a list of updates.

I tried a few at first (2018-05 and 2018-04), and
that didn't stop the Windows Update looping.

So I blasted in the rest (all the outstanding ones listed
in the output of an MBSA 2.3 scan)...

https://s33.postimg.cc/k8tvtlfwf/blast_in_updates.gif

And all I got out of the effort is:

1) MBSA 2.3 broke, and no longer comes back from a scan.
That's never ever happened before here.
2) Windows Update still spins in a loop (one core railed).
3) The WU Update History appears borked. I don't think
I can see the installed updates, which perhaps is normal.

At least the OS still boots :-/

On the "borked" scale, this is roughly as bad as Vista now.
Vista behaves like that on Windows Update. Microsoft
should be proud.

Paul
  #5  
Old June 16th 18, 09:56 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Latest guidance re how to get updates

none wrote:
Got an Averatec 3150P laptop still running XP Pro after 15 years, maybe
because I only drag it out nowadays on or maybe shortly after Patch
Tuesday to see if it still boots up and can snag whatever updates are
available. I was doing this via the registry hack that spoofed XP
Imbedded and POSReady 2009 (the one that promised updates until next
year). This worked fine until some event-don't recall exactly what
now-prompted Microsoft to temporarily resume updating XP a little while
back. Last updates I successfully got were at the end of March (little
late updating that month and have slacked off since). Anyway, we're
back to the eternal "searching for updates" issue and Microsoft Security
Essentials, which HAD started working again, now won't update even after
searching overnight. Any ideas as to where I should go from here? Really
would like to get those last few months of updates that hack promised.


OK, I have something for you to try.

Early on in my experiments with a WinXP/PosReady setup
in a VM, I got "tricked" into using the IE8 Cumulative
with this KB number. It turns out KB4018271 is not the
correct IE8 update. It installs OK and everything,
but it fouls up the supersedence big time. It even has
the same release number as the correct one.

IE8-WindowsXP-KB4018271-x86-Custom-ENU.exe 10,974,448 bytes

*******

When I installed WinXP in a VM a second time, this time
I installed wsusoffline first (9.2.4 capture) into WinXP.
Then set the PosReady "Installed" registry entry DWORD to 1.
When I ran MBSA 2.3 security analyzer, it gave me a
reference to KB4230450 being missing. As soon as I
went to catalog.update.microsoft.com and realized it
was a Cumulative, I knew I'd been tricked on the first one.

ie8-windowsxp-kb4230450-x86-embedded-enu_d8b388624d07b6804485d347be4f74a985d50be7.exe

10,976,960 bytes

If you go to catalog.update.microsoft.com with firefox and enter

kb4230450

then scroll down until you find the PosReady one, you should
be able to click the Download button on the right and download
the 10,976,960 byte file. (Different language choices will
have a different sized file.)

Once you execute the EXE, your copy of IE8 will be updated.

I did a reboot at that point.

Then visited Windows Update, and damn if my symptoms didn't
change for the better. WU seemed responsive.

I couldn't complete the experiment because of needing to
install WGA (890120???) on an unactivated copy of WinXP,
so the experiment ends there. But it does give the appearance
of being functional, as far as I can test it.

Anyway, that's the breadcrumb of the day - comes
with no guarantees. I assume you're running IE8, because
I doubt there are any more Cumulatives for the others
(they're out of support), and you would not have
received any updates unless you were running a
version of IE that was completely up to date.

So the idea is, if this happens again, hunt down
the (correct) Cumulative that month for IE8 and
install it. New Cumulatives for IE used to come
out monthly, and if you don't install it first
(before running WU), then WU takes a lot longer
to paint the screen.

Paul
  #6  
Old June 17th 18, 01:00 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Shadow
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,638
Default Latest guidance re how to get updates

On Sat, 16 Jun 2018 04:56:08 -0400, Paul
wrote:

none wrote:
Got an Averatec 3150P laptop still running XP Pro after 15 years, maybe
because I only drag it out nowadays on or maybe shortly after Patch
Tuesday to see if it still boots up and can snag whatever updates are
available. I was doing this via the registry hack that spoofed XP
Imbedded and POSReady 2009 (the one that promised updates until next
year). This worked fine until some event-don't recall exactly what
now-prompted Microsoft to temporarily resume updating XP a little while
back. Last updates I successfully got were at the end of March (little
late updating that month and have slacked off since). Anyway, we're
back to the eternal "searching for updates" issue and Microsoft Security
Essentials, which HAD started working again, now won't update even after
searching overnight. Any ideas as to where I should go from here? Really
would like to get those last few months of updates that hack promised.


OK, I have something for you to try.

Early on in my experiments with a WinXP/PosReady setup
in a VM, I got "tricked" into using the IE8 Cumulative
with this KB number. It turns out KB4018271 is not the
correct IE8 update. It installs OK and everything,
but it fouls up the supersedence big time. It even has
the same release number as the correct one.

IE8-WindowsXP-KB4018271-x86-Custom-ENU.exe 10,974,448 bytes


Looks like since malware did not take down XP, M$ showed its
hand. Offering a deliberately buggy update is probably the sneakiest
way to trash a system. Typical M$.
Note the above is not your typical MSI/CAB installer.

"Hey, XP is quirky - I'll have to buy a dumb terminal after
all" - User.
[]'s

*******

When I installed WinXP in a VM a second time, this time
I installed wsusoffline first (9.2.4 capture) into WinXP.
Then set the PosReady "Installed" registry entry DWORD to 1.
When I ran MBSA 2.3 security analyzer, it gave me a
reference to KB4230450 being missing. As soon as I
went to catalog.update.microsoft.com and realized it
was a Cumulative, I knew I'd been tricked on the first one.

ie8-windowsxp-kb4230450-x86-embedded-enu_d8b388624d07b6804485d347be4f74a985d50be7.exe

10,976,960 bytes

If you go to catalog.update.microsoft.com with firefox and enter

kb4230450

then scroll down until you find the PosReady one, you should
be able to click the Download button on the right and download
the 10,976,960 byte file. (Different language choices will
have a different sized file.)

Once you execute the EXE, your copy of IE8 will be updated.

I did a reboot at that point.

Then visited Windows Update, and damn if my symptoms didn't
change for the better. WU seemed responsive.

I couldn't complete the experiment because of needing to
install WGA (890120???) on an unactivated copy of WinXP,
so the experiment ends there. But it does give the appearance
of being functional, as far as I can test it.

Anyway, that's the breadcrumb of the day - comes
with no guarantees. I assume you're running IE8, because
I doubt there are any more Cumulatives for the others
(they're out of support), and you would not have
received any updates unless you were running a
version of IE that was completely up to date.

So the idea is, if this happens again, hunt down
the (correct) Cumulative that month for IE8 and
install it. New Cumulatives for IE used to come
out monthly, and if you don't install it first
(before running WU), then WU takes a lot longer
to paint the screen.

Paul

--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012
 




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