Slow Windows Updates Installs

Hi,

Sorry, but I have searched this forum with the hope I would find an answer to my problem. Perhaps I haven't searched diligently enough but I could not find the answer.

I have dealt with a choice few XP Pro machines thus far. Every one seems to act differently when it comes to applying Windows Updates.

Mine (P4 custom)......gobbles up the hugest download of them and installs it immediately. One daughter's (P3 750 custom).......pretty much the same thing. Other daughter's (AMD 1600 custom)......takes about half a day to install a lump of Updates if it even installs them at all.

Okay......I have someone's P3 on my table for format/reinstall. I give up already!

First batch of Windows Updates after install was around 20 Megs. It downloads like mad......install starts fine then just crawls to what looks like a halt. It finally restarts itself about 24 hours later! There should have been far more than the 8 Hotfixes I see in control panel....something like 16 or so. The next lump of Updates are 14 megs, total. It's been close to another 24 hours now and still installing.

I am now going to format again or something. I will wait for your comments, first. On daugher 2's machine, I simply take smaller download amounts but this is a ridiculous way to do things. Her AMD1600 chews up anything else in sight except for Windows Updates. This 450 should be like daughter 1's P3750 or my P4.......quick and painless.

What's going on, folks? Why does this happen and how do I fix it so it doesn't happen??? I'm about to jump off a bridge here but it's just doo darn cold up here now to take a walk down one.

Randy
(can almost always be found at home......waiting for a Windows Update to install)

 

Update on situation

Update on situation:

I have just removed all Hotfixes and Updates from Add/Remove Programs, including SP1.

I have removed all trace of the Windows Update software via the "Fixing Windows Update" method on the following page:

http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=434&dPage=11

I shall also be heeding some good advice from good ol' Infinisource by renaming the Catroot2 folder as per the next page here:

http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/troub-08.html

Now I shall go back to my nightmare and will post back as soon as I know if things improved. Okay?

Later,
Randy

 

Thanks, PeteC!

So......question for you:

On the one daughter's machine, if I seem to remember something to the effect that when Updates didn't install fully, they weren't listed in Add/Remove Programs but yet, somehow, the Windows Update site "thought" I already had them so it didn't prompt me to download them.

Am I right in this recollection and, if so, how to I go about causing Windows to "fake" like it needs everything for that certain PC so that I would actually see what updates I need to install, by number, from the wonderful site you posted to me?

(I don't mind re-downloading them all if that's possible) ????

Randy

 

PeteC,

I cannot thank you enough for your help!

Alas, updating Windows XP is a ****-shoot at best. You flip from the site that selects the updates for you....over to the site you posted to me with all the updates (great site BTW)......you search for what may or may not be listed as available........all the while waiting for a painfully slow update to install (might as well have the PC doing something)........then you manually match up some of the updates you need, only to have the page "maybe" let you go to the "Download Basket" or maybe not........then to the page that may or may not allow you to enter where you want the downloads to go to.......and if all doesn't go well, start all over again........which is still miles above letting the site do it for you where the selections are already there after the scan for your PC.

Does this sound a bit like maybe something isn't quite right with the way MS is doing things???? Add to that that no one seems to know why some installs of XP update nicely and some do not.

The girl I am doing this for paid some serious coin for her operating system. She gets this for her money????

Forgive me for the rant. I will get all the updates in, thanks to help from PeteC.


Thanx again, PeteC! Like I said, I will eventually do much with the information you so graciously provided me.

Thankfully,
Randy

 

Windows XP updates

See some are having problems with windows XP updates. I'd like to know quite why so many ?. seemss like 2 or 3 every day or other day. PS. Uninstalled SP1 as it knocked out my sound system

 

Start a new thread on that, Martial, and give us all a chance to rant.

Johanna

 

FWIW, I have been lots happier and had much better results since I loaded BigFix and let it manage updates for me. Turned off all the M$ pieces.

 

Thanx, Newt!

I had heard about the BigFix program long ago but, being the "doubting Thomas" I am, dismissed it immediately. It being a good program, coming from you, immediately skyrockets it back up there again.

No doubt, this thing works well. I have installed it and it came up with 2 downloads for me, one of which would appear to be important enough that anyone would be silly not to install it.

Thanx for the heads-up on this, Newt! I shall be watching this program closely and paying a great deal of attention as to what it suggests.

A MS Windows Update scan completely missed these aforementioned patches which were both from MS themselves!

....so any sure-fire, major money making, "Sport Select" ticket pics for us, Newt ???

Gratefully,
Randy

 

May I suggest a solution to patching and re-installing Windows painlessly? Go to http://www.autopatcher.com and dl AutoPatcher XP Gold 4.0. It includes not only all post SP1 patches, but you can also choose to install other software (SUN's JRE for example) as well. 107 fixes altogether. It will install only what you check, so it is customizable. It is also free. I've made a CD containinf SP1 and AutoPatcher XP Gold, so that in the event of having to re-install Windows it won't take any work. It only reboots when ALL the patches are installed and auto-verifies the correct installation of each and everyone of the fixes. Cheers.

 

chameleon - for a while after I installed BigFix on my two XP systems at home I also left the M$ piece running just to see how things would work. BigFix was always at least a day ahead of M$ and often 2-3 days.

The M$ info would show up but never as soon as BigFix found it. Interesting to me is that the BigFix load on the wife's PC always alerts her a few hours before I get the info and we are running identical OS's on the same LAN behind a router/switch. Go figure.