Are WinXP updates still coming from MS?

My years-long routine is not to have auto-updating on constantly, but to go
to the MS update page once a week to check for updates. My last successful
update was Nov. 10. When I went back Nov. 17, all I got was the "Checking
for latest updates for your computer" bar running endlessly. That's been
the same every day since then.

Either the last update buggered something up, or the XP update site is
misbehaving. Has anybody else encountered this?

--
--------------------------------------------
Dick Baker
(contact via http://goon.org/contact.php)

Dick Baker wrote:
My years-long routine is not to have auto-updating on constantly, but to go
to the MS update page once a week to check for updates. My last successful
update was Nov. 10. When I went back Nov. 17, all I got was the "Checking
for latest updates for your computer" bar running endlessly. That's been
the same every day since then.

Either the last update buggered something up, or the XP update site is
misbehaving. Has anybody else encountered this?


On mine, I do the same thing. Run Windows Update manually.

It pegs the CPU for at least 10 minutes, doing *nothing* .
You can see a "svchost" using all the CPU on one core.
Eventually it comes back, CPU usage returns to normal.
I can then complete the updates. (Hmmm. I'm past the
ten minute mark now... Guess I'll have to take a nap or
something :-) )

This sort of thing has happened before. This is not
a new bug.

Microsoft undoubtedly thinks everything is working fine - when it isn't.
I still haven't narrowed down what's doing it. Sometimes after
I do eventually manage to do the Updates, it behaves normally
for a while. But weeks later, it might be back to its old habits.

Updates will stop around April 2014, so it should be
fully working until that date. And in principle, if
you phoned up, this should be a "supported" issue and
not cost money to fix.

*******

Another thing you might have noticed, is networking not being "up"
until a minute or two has expired. Then, networking comes alive,
and any other network-related processes can continue. I've
traced that down to .net. The fix for that is:

ngen.exe executequeueditems

and selecting the ngen from the latest revision of .NET you
have onboard.

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\ngen .exe executequeueditems

I have to do that, if I do Windows Updates, and any .NET security
updates come in. Which is practically every month. NGEN needs
to pre-compile .net assemblies or something. Using that command,
forces it to clean up once and for all (until the next time).

HTH,
Paul

Paul wrote:
Dick Baker wrote:
My years-long routine is not to have auto-updating on constantly, but
to go to the MS update page once a week to check for updates. My last
successful update was Nov. 10. When I went back Nov. 17, all I got
was the "Checking for latest updates for your computer" bar running
endlessly. That's been the same every day since then.

Either the last update buggered something up, or the XP update site is
misbehaving. Has anybody else encountered this?


On mine, I had to wait *30 minutes* before the svchost
stopped using all the CPU on one core, and the Windows Update
screen returned with eight entries. I should bill Microsoft
for the wasted electricity.

Paul

On 11/19/2013 09:36 AM, Dick Baker wrote:
My years-long routine is not to have auto-updating on constantly, but to go
to the MS update page once a week to check for updates. My last successful
update was Nov. 10. When I went back Nov. 17, all I got was the "Checking
for latest updates for your computer" bar running endlessly. That's been
the same every day since then.

Either the last update buggered something up, or the XP update site is
misbehaving. Has anybody else encountered this?

Constantly as of late, on all my XP boxes. Reinstalling Windows on one
of my machines this last weekend, I finally ended up enabling automatic
updates, and after a few hours it actually started to work. Rebooted
and bumped the time back to the next hour and let it run all night, and
it also worked. It is now completely updated.

I used to be able to just to the Windows Update page and count on it
working, but now it is no longer the case. I have read a zillion pages
on how to fix the issue, many which were several years old (this
apparently has been an ongoing problem), with none of them being
successful, so I am just going to use the tool from
http://www.wsusoffline.net/ from now on (which is probably better as the
end is nigh for XP updates):

Jon

Paul explained :
Dick Baker wrote:
My years-long routine is not to have auto-updating on constantly, but to go
to the MS update page once a week to check for updates. My last successful
update was Nov. 10. When I went back Nov. 17, all I got was the "Checking
for latest updates for your computer" bar running endlessly. That's been
the same every day since then.

Either the last update buggered something up, or the XP update site is
misbehaving. Has anybody else encountered this?


On mine, I do the same thing. Run Windows Update manually.

It pegs the CPU for at least 10 minutes, doing *nothing* .
You can see a "svchost" using all the CPU on one core.
Eventually it comes back, CPU usage returns to normal.
I can then complete the updates. (Hmmm. I'm past the
ten minute mark now... Guess I'll have to take a nap or
something :-) )

This sort of thing has happened before. This is not
a new bug.

Microsoft undoubtedly thinks everything is working fine - when it isn't.
I still haven't narrowed down what's doing it. Sometimes after
I do eventually manage to do the Updates, it behaves normally
for a while. But weeks later, it might be back to its old habits.

Updates will stop around April 2014, so it should be
fully working until that date. And in principle, if
you phoned up, this should be a "supported" issue and
not cost money to fix.

*******

Another thing you might have noticed, is networking not being "up"
until a minute or two has expired. Then, networking comes alive,
and any other network-related processes can continue. I've
traced that down to .net. The fix for that is:

ngen.exe executequeueditems

and selecting the ngen from the latest revision of .NET you
have onboard.

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\ngen .exe executequeueditems

I have to do that, if I do Windows Updates, and any .NET security
updates come in. Which is practically every month. NGEN needs
to pre-compile .net assemblies or something. Using that command,
forces it to clean up once and for all (until the next time).

HTH,
Paul

MS seems to have no "lessons learned" program.
One would think that Vista and Win7 and Win8 and beyond would have
fewer and fewer fixes. They do not seem to understand code reuse.
Maybe we are supposed to think that the MS elves keep working for us
and that is a good thing.
MS wold be better served to concentrate on writing a code scrutinizer
so that their code going out is clean.
How many holes in code can there be?
One would think that exploits would diminish over time or are they
purposely designing them in so they can appear to be doing great things
for us? Or ... you better buy this new OS 'cause it is "better" that
the previous one. Spend money!
XP does everything most would want or need!



--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

Jon Danniken presented the following explanation :
On 11/19/2013 09:36 AM, Dick Baker wrote:
My years-long routine is not to have auto-updating on constantly, but to go
to the MS update page once a week to check for updates. My last successful
update was Nov. 10. When I went back Nov. 17, all I got was the "Checking
for latest updates for your computer" bar running endlessly. That's been
the same every day since then.

Either the last update buggered something up, or the XP update site is
misbehaving. Has anybody else encountered this?

Constantly as of late, on all my XP boxes. Reinstalling Windows on one
of my machines this last weekend, I finally ended up enabling automatic
updates, and after a few hours it actually started to work. Rebooted
and bumped the time back to the next hour and let it run all night, and
it also worked. It is now completely updated.

I used to be able to just to the Windows Update page and count on it
working, but now it is no longer the case. I have read a zillion pages
on how to fix the issue, many which were several years old (this
apparently has been an ongoing problem), with none of them being
successful, so I am just going to use the tool from
http://www.wsusoffline.net/ from now on (which is probably better as the
end is nigh for XP updates):

Jon

Does this mean that there are much fewer crackers interested in
exploits and will focus their attention of Win8 and pretty much leave
XP alone?

Is MS abandoning the Live Security Essentials for XP too?



--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On 11/19/2013 02:12 PM, OldGuy wrote:

MS seems to have no "lessons learned" program.
One would think that Vista and Win7 and Win8 and beyond would have fewer
and fewer fixes. They do not seem to understand code reuse.
Maybe we are supposed to think that the MS elves keep working for us and
that is a good thing.
MS wold be better served to concentrate on writing a code scrutinizer so
that their code going out is clean.
How many holes in code can there be?
One would think that exploits would diminish over time or are they
purposely designing them in so they can appear to be doing great things
for us? Or ... you better buy this new OS 'cause it is "better" that
the previous one. Spend money!
XP does everything most would want or need!

They don't exactly run the company from an engineer's perspective:

http://www.businessinsider.com/micro...-expose-2012-7

Jon

On 11/19/2013 02:15 PM, OldGuy wrote:
Jon Danniken presented the following explanation :


Constantly as of late, on all my XP boxes. Reinstalling Windows on one
of my machines this last weekend, I finally ended up enabling automatic
updates, and after a few hours it actually started to work. Rebooted
and bumped the time back to the next hour and let it run all night, and
it also worked. It is now completely updated.

I used to be able to just to the Windows Update page and count on it
working, but now it is no longer the case. I have read a zillion pages
on how to fix the issue, many which were several years old (this
apparently has been an ongoing problem), with none of them being
successful, so I am just going to use the tool from
http://www.wsusoffline.net/ from now on (which is probably better as the
end is nigh for XP updates):

Jon

Does this mean that there are much fewer crackers interested in exploits
and will focus their attention of Win8 and pretty much leave XP alone?

I would think just the opposite, now that there will be no new updates
to fix found security holes. Granted, there will obviously be fewer
people using the OS, but it may be a perilous road for those of us who do.

I will still continue to use XP on my HTPC, for example, because it just
runs terribly on Win7 (obsolete board from a now defunct manufacturer,
with an unsupported chipset), while it functions just fine on XP.

Jon

Dick Baker seesig4address wrote in
:

My years-long routine is not to have auto-updating on constantly, but
to go to the MS update page once a week to check for updates. My last
successful update was Nov. 10. When I went back Nov. 17, all I got
was the "Checking for latest updates for your computer" bar running
endlessly. That's been the same every day since then.

Either the last update buggered something up, or the XP update site is
misbehaving. Has anybody else encountered this?


Thanks to all the responders for the reassurance that it's not just me.
I guess I'll just have to let the think run for a LONG time without
giving up. And considering all the others who have remarked on this
problem, I'm surprised that it's taken so long for it to happen to me.

--
--------------------------------------------
Dick Baker
(contact via http://goon.org/contact.php)

On 11/19/2013 04:38 PM, Dick Baker wrote:
Dick Baker seesig4address wrote in
:

My years-long routine is not to have auto-updating on constantly, but
to go to the MS update page once a week to check for updates. My last
successful update was Nov. 10. When I went back Nov. 17, all I got
was the "Checking for latest updates for your computer" bar running
endlessly. That's been the same every day since then.

Either the last update buggered something up, or the XP update site is
misbehaving. Has anybody else encountered this?


Thanks to all the responders for the reassurance that it's not just me.
I guess I'll just have to let the think run for a LONG time without
giving up. And considering all the others who have remarked on this
problem, I'm surprised that it's taken so long for it to happen to me.

BTW, the update process is logged in C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log .

Jon

"Dick Baker" seesig4address wrote in message
...
My years-long routine is not to have auto-updating on constantly, but to
go
to the MS update page once a week to check for updates. My last
successful
update was Nov. 10. When I went back Nov. 17, all I got was the "Checking
for latest updates for your computer" bar running endlessly. That's been
the same every day since then.

Either the last update buggered something up, or the XP update site is
misbehaving. Has anybody else encountered this?

--
--------------------------------------------
Dick Baker
(contact via http://goon.org/contact.php)

If you are running IE8, this might help (From the thread Cannot update, BITS
and Windows Update corrupted)

Apparently the October cumulative update for IE8
messed up BITS (and therefore Windows/Automatic update) for many people. I
managed to get mine sorted by various registry hacks I came across when
searching.

Current advice seems to be to Google for the direct download of the
November cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP
(KB2888505).

People are reporting that after install BITS and auto updating are fixed.

This is the direct download link for the November IE8 update:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl....aspx?id=41074

Install it and then reboot.

Jon Danniken wrote:
On 11/19/2013 04:38 PM, Dick Baker wrote:
Dick Baker seesig4address wrote in
:

My years-long routine is not to have auto-updating on constantly, but
to go to the MS update page once a week to check for updates. My last
successful update was Nov. 10. When I went back Nov. 17, all I got
was the "Checking for latest updates for your computer" bar running
endlessly. That's been the same every day since then.

Either the last update buggered something up, or the XP update site is
misbehaving. Has anybody else encountered this?

Thanks to all the responders for the reassurance that it's not just me.
I guess I'll just have to let the think run for a LONG time without
giving up. And considering all the others who have remarked on this
problem, I'm surprised that it's taken so long for it to happen to me.

BTW, the update process is logged in C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log .

Jon


Now that's a useful hint :-)

While I can't be sure of anything here, the time gaps and 100% CPU
seem to align with the AU message. For example, the last pair I
list here (41:40-15:59), corresponds to this afternoon's 25 minute
delay and 100% CPU.

2013-06-03 02:54:03:562 1468 4c0 AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-06-03 02:54:03:562 1468 b30 Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

2013-07-11 16:30:05:468 1496 590 AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-07-11 16:32:30:140 1496 9f0 Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

2013-08-26 09:50:03:843 1460 478 AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-08-26 09:55:38:250 1460 94 Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

2013-08-31 05:30:48:406 1464 47c AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-08-31 05:36:38:953 1464 ea4 Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

2013-08-31 06:41:16:203 1468 580 AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-08-31 06:46:50:250 1468 348 Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

2013-08-31 07:25:24:781 1468 568 AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-08-31 07:30:59:437 1468 430 Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

2013-08-31 08:47:17:250 1468 520 AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-08-31 08:47:17:250 1468 824 Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

2013-09-13 13:30:17:046 1476 488 AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-09-13 13:37:09:765 1476 8b4 Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

2013-09-14 09:17:20:609 1480 580 AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-09-14 09:17:20:875 1480 864 Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

2013-11-01 06:13:47:375 1464 578 AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-11-01 06:26:43:671 1464 c38 Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

2013-11-19 13:15:59:005 1464 574 AU Can not perform non-interactive scan if AU is interactive-only
2013-11-19 13:41:40:833 1464 e5c Agent * Added update {B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-84B00592946A}.100 to search result

Still can't seem to shake it.

Paul

Paul wrote:


2013-11-19 13:15:59:005 1464 574 AU Can not perform
non-interactive scan
if AU is interactive-only
2013-11-19 13:41:40:833 1464 e5c Agent * Added update
{B4B9471C-1A5E-4D9C-94EF-
84B00592946A}.100 to search result

Still can't seem to shake it.

Paul

The posts Wednesday, October 30, 2013 6:40 PM and
Wednesday, October 30, 2013 8:04 PM, are suspicious.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...orum=itproxpsp

"OK just to follow up. The rest of the updates completed quickly
after the 3 hour "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification" update.
I rebooted and ran the update again. 23 more needed but it
took all of 5 minutes to produce the list. So I guess I am good."

I don't consider that "good". Five minutes still implies a problem
is present. But it's interesting that once WGA Notification
was installed, the problem is not nearly as bad.

I don't have KB905474 installed on this machine, and don't see
why it would be an issue. The license on the machine is legitimate,
and is a system builder OEM copy with COA sticker (purchased from
a legit large retailer).

I tried capturing some traces. I can't see anything suspicious with
procmon, but that doesn't trace any interprocess communications.

The provss.log seems to stop activity, at the same time that the svchost
goes into a loop, but it could just be a side effect
rather than a cause.

(provss.log - the event at 5:48:38 almost looks like a product activation
check, but this could be coming about because the Internet Explorer window
just updated, and it's preparing to do the next step...)

(Wed Nov 20 05:22:00 2013.487609) : - CServerObject_BindingFactory::GetProvider hr = 00000000
(Wed Nov 20 05:22:04 2013.490734) : + CServerObject_BindingFactory::GetProvider User (null) Locale ms_409 Scope (null) Name CIMWin32
(Wed Nov 20 05:22:04 2013.490734) : FindProvider hr = 00000000
(Wed Nov 20 05:22:04 2013.490734) : - CServerObject_BindingFactory::GetProvider hr = 00000000
(Wed Nov 20 05:22:04 2013.490734) : + CServerObject_BindingFactory::GetProvider User (null) Locale ms_409 Scope (null) Name CIMWin32
(Wed Nov 20 05:22:04 2013.490734) : FindProvider hr = 00000000
(Wed Nov 20 05:22:04 2013.490734) : - CServerObject_BindingFactory::GetProvider hr = 00000000
(Wed Nov 20 05:48:38 2013.2085140) : + CServerObject_BindingFactory::GetProvider User ComputerName\UserName Locale ms_409 Scope (null)
Name Win32_WIN32_WINDOWSPRODUCTACTIVATION_Prov
(Wed Nov 20 05:48:38 2013.2085140) : FindProvider hr = 80041002
(Wed Nov 20 05:48:38 2013.2085156) : Find() StatusCode 80000008
(Wed Nov 20 05:48:38 2013.2085156) : IWbemProviderInit::Initialize hr = 00000000

Paul

"Dick Baker" seesig4address ha scritto nel messaggio
...

to go to the MS update page once a week to check for updates

Updates from MS are published only once every month (the second Tuesday of
every month). Why do you search them every week?

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 14:12:30 -0800, "OldGuy" wrote
in article ...
MS seems to have no "lessons learned" program.
One would think that Vista and Win7 and Win8 and beyond would have
fewer and fewer fixes. They do not seem to understand code reuse.
Maybe we are supposed to think that the MS elves keep working for us
and that is a good thing.
MS wold be better served to concentrate on writing a code scrutinizer
so that their code going out is clean.
How many holes in code can there be?
One would think that exploits would diminish over time or are they
purposely designing them in so they can appear to be doing great things
for us? Or ... you better buy this new OS 'cause it is "better" that
the previous one. Spend money!
XP does everything most would want or need!



You really don't understand programming or the size of the Windows code
base and how it continues to expand and grow with new features, etc.,
do you?

--
Zaphod

Vell, Zaphod's just zis guy, ya know? - Gag Halfrunt