Windows XP updates

[lhyman]

Today I did a job, a computer was severely messed up with viruses. It was an XP and has a Win XP License sticker on it. After running several different anti-virus scans on it and getting nowhere fast. I suggest to the owner that the best way to go was to do a format and reinstall every thing... no problem, I got the OK...

The system was from 2005 and has XP Home on it. I do a destructive HP recovery. The system boots up and everything is fine. I go to the windows update site..... 150 updates, done, reboot, remove some software & add some other software, go to the windows update site, 49 updates, done, reboot

Go to the windows update site, want to install SP3, takes an hour, done reboot

go to the windows update site, 23 more updates, done reboot, no more updates to do..

so the total is 150+49+1+23= 223 updates

man, that's a lot....

 

[Livewire]

I'm actually surprised you didn't just snag SP3 first - if memory serves SP3 carries a lot of the critical updates with it, and there's a good number of updates that are security updates to stuff like IE6/7, which are promptly replaced with an update that installs IE8 later.

Dunno if it works from base-xp to sp3 or sp1 to sp3, but I know I did it from SP2 to SP3 to save time (and it -did- work for that). Still have to do the SP3 patches but it saves time to skip a whole bunch of other ones.

 

[faba5594]

Really? It didn't have nearly that many updates for me. I "only" had to reboot three times, and the first time there was only one update. The second two reboots had quite more updates though, but it still didn't amount to nearly that much.

 

[lhyman]

I tried to install SP3 first but it would not let me, something about the HP & the AMD cpu that would cause it to reboot non stop if SP3 was installed, I was forced to do the 150 updates first....

You have to remember that this was an OEM HP win xp home from 2005

 

[Livewire]

I tried to install SP3 first but it would not let me, something about the HP & the AMD cpu that would cause it to reboot non stop if SP3 was installed, I was forced to do the 150 updates first....

You have to remember that this was an OEM HP win xp home from 2005

Reboot nonstop? Weeeeeeird, that sounds like some seriously weird hardware

@faba: Was close to that many from SP2, I can't remember if 2005 was even XP SP1 let alone 2. It probably did have a few just to get it ready to go to the next servicepack :S

 

[lhyman]

here is the article from MS on the rebooting problem... I guess the fix was automatic in one of those first 150 updates....

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953356/en-us

and from HP

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01457284

 

[zen-r]

How was the system protected during all this downloading?

Had you a good firewall in place?

 

[lhyman]

How was the system protected during all this downloading?

Had you a good firewall in place?

2wire router firewall & windows xp firewall and AVG anti virus....

 

[Sharky]

You should be able to get the AMD driver, then go straight to SP3. Service packs are supposed to be cumulative, meaning you shouldn't have to update to get the SP. Apparently there were one or two prerequisites (namely the AMD patch), and it just happened to get a whole load of other things at the same time.

 

[zen-r]

You should be able to get the AMD driver, then go straight to SP3. Service packs are supposed to be cumulative, meaning you shouldn't have to update to get the SP. Apparently there were one or two prerequisites (namely the AMD patch), and it just happened to get a whole load of other things at the same time.

The problem with these things is that one is often only wise after the event!

Also, I'd imagine that lhyman, not being on his own PC, wasn't previously aware of this AMD driver issue.

 

[lhyman]

The whole point of my original post was ALL THE UPDATES, there were reasons that certain updates were served before other updates... In the first batch of updates, every driver was updated... Also, the HP OEM Windows Home was in French, and even though the computer was setup as French Canadian it was connection to the windows update site in france

I had brought the AMD patch and SP3 with me on CD and tried to install both of them but they both refused to install.

However, the windows update site did work, but the machine needed a lot of updates... I didn't catch every single update as everything was in French (and my French is weak)

I was just wondering if anybody else ever ran into that situation.....

The other day I reformatted my cousins PC (he has a dell) we used the Dell OEM Windows XP Pro SP3 CD and upon the first connect to the windows update site, that PC still downloaded close to 80 updates...

Let me ask all of you a question:

If you have Win XP o n your system, when did you install it and how many updates do you think you have downloaded since your install?

 

[zen-r]

I've installed LOTS of updates since installation several years ago, & I also don't like all the disk space each new one eats up. The update process certainly doesn't seem to be an ideal one.

But to be fair to Microsoft, I suppose the point is this;

- These OEM copies of Windows are cheap. They added little to the cost of the PC compared to buying the software separately. So it's not surprising if they are tied in to the PC in this way, & are now causing more work to be required, many years on, with a new install.

- At least MS is providing updates. The software is very old now, & was never designed to last forever. Several new MS OS's have been released since XP, & one could always buy them if one doesn't want to try to turn an old OS into a new one! ( & yes, I know, there is a problem with that : the latest MS OS's often won't fit onto old PCs without a hardware upgrade!)

 

[lhyman]

Zen-r you make a very good point.... If you ever installed an illegal copy of XP and it fails the WGA, it brings you to a MS site where you can order it (here in Canada for $199.00)

Now my new net-book came with Win XP home on it and the net-book costed me $250.00 Canadian, so if I were to take off the $199.00 for XP then that means that my New net-book only costed me $51.00

What can I say, I really do like XP even if I find it annoying sometimes.... but heck, I even find Fedora annoying sometimes and my Fedora is forever downloading updates too...

Maybe I'll just downgrade back to a C-64 or even a VAX that way for sure I won't have to worry about updates anymore.... LOL

 

[xav0989]

2wire router firewall & windows xp firewall and AVG anti virus....

So I guess your ISP is bell! (I had the same router)
Edit:

Zen-r you make a very good point.... If you ever installed an illegal copy of XP and it fails the WGA, it brings you to a MS site where you can order it (here in Canada for $199.00)

Now my new net-book came with Win XP home on it and the net-book costed me $250.00 Canadian, so if I were to take off the $199.00 for XP then that means that my New net-book only costed me $51.00

What can I say, I really do like XP even if I find it annoying sometimes.... but heck, I even find Fedora annoying sometimes and my Fedora is forever downloading updates too...

Maybe I'll just downgrade back to a C-64 or even a VAX that way for sure I won't have to worry about updates anymore.... LOL

A family member of mine had a XP Pro with a multi user license - forgot the actual license type - that got recalled. When I updated the computer, the WGA program kept saying that Windows was an illegal copy. I patched the WGA program and Windows now passes the validation test!

BTW, if you go back to C-64, could you handle only having 2 or 3 programs open at the same time, or not using firefox?

 

[lhyman]

So I guess your ISP is bell! (I had the same router)
Edit:


A family member of mine had a XP Pro with a multi user license - forgot the actual license type - that got recalled. When I updated the computer, the WGA program kept saying that Windows was an illegal copy. I patched the WGA program and Windows now passes the validation test!

yes but that is illegal

BTW, if you go back to C-64, could you handle only having 2 or 3 programs open at the same time, or not using firefox?

I guess I would have to use 2 or 3 C-64's at the same time.... LOL

 

[Sharky]

I had Windows NT4 running on my laptop for a few months a while back. Fast as anything. Compatibility was a bit of an issue, but if it's only used infrequently and you don't care how crappy it looks (remember, NT4 came out roughly the same time as 95...), then go for it. No activation stuff either. And if you look hard enough, you can update the interface to more closely resemble 98 (active desktop, etc... remember that?).

 

[Brandon]

I have XP w/ SP3 Integrated.

Hotfix(s): 104 Hotfix(s) Installed.

Original Install Date: 2/17/2009, 8:01:40 PM

 

[Smith6612]

Now that's odd. I've had to nuke a few machines that I've received to take a look at and whenever I run Windows update after setting things up, I'm only offered two updates, which are Windows Updating software update, and Windows Genuine Advantage. After that, even if the system is a Service Pack 1 system, I'm offered Service Pack 3 instead of downloading a bunch of updates, and then downloading the service pack for it to make little changes to the system. Service packs though take no more than 2 minutes to download here, but my real issue with working with old machines is that they're slow (small amount of RAM/OLD Processor, small and slow Parallel hard drive). I often leave them running for hours sometimes just having them finish a task.

Just as an FYI: I hate those destructive recovery disks that a lot of PC makers give you. I've seen many cases where people have lost gigabytes worth of important documents they didn't back up (why they didn't is beyond me, but seeing as though many people whose PCs I repair on are hooked up to Cable/DSL/Fiber, there's no excuse) due to those disks for trying to fix Windows. I have to wind up spending days using some old floppy disks I have sitting around with recovery software on them to pull that data back, at least partially. Right now I've got two PCs I'm going to be taking a look at tomorrow. We had some nasty storms last week that are apparently messing up PCs in my area. What is going on with this machines is that Windows XP is failing to boot, as in you'll see the XP logo start up screen for a quarter second to a second, and the machine will then blue screen and reboot. I have a Windows XP disk handy which I use to boot into the recovery console so that I can perform commands such as fixmbr, fixboot and chkdsk /f which is what I'm sure will fix up these PCs I'm looking at (I've seen this happen before due to viruses on the machine). Can't do that with a destructive disk. Of course, if the disk is destructive, I'll try using UBCD, then I'll grab my Windows disk and use it to recover their PC, and worst case scenario, I take their PC in for the night, back up their data, nuke the drive and reinstall everything.

 

[steronius]

Weel that's a lot of work and yes, i've been there. I can suggest making an image of the system after all your hard work. So that next time they destroy it, you have a better starting place. ...Use CloneZilla -- it's like Ghost or Acronis, but free.