Windows XP will not update? (Fixed)

[stinger608]

Have a friend that has an ooooooold laptop that we reformatted and reinstalled Windows XP on. Once it was loaded and rebooted it will not do any updates to XP?

Sits and searches for updates hour after hour after hour. Nothing ever happens.

Anyone having this same issue on an old XP system?

I even tried the Microsoft Update site and it still does that same thing.:$

 

[mikeymikec]

install SP3 on it with the standalone installer?

 

[Via]

This is common.

There are lot's of good recent threads on this that can help.

 

[Ganiy]

Earlier I had Windows XP OS. But when facing with the same problem, I have just reinstalled it on Windows 7. I did not know earlier that the problem could be solved.

 

[stinger608]

install SP3 on it with the standalone installer?

Forgot to state it is an installation with SP3

This is common.

There are lot's of good recent threads on this that can help.

Links to some helpful threads?

 

[Ketchup]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2347478

Summary: make the big updates manually: like SP3 and IE, then try WU. It will still take forever the first time, but you should get updates at this point.

 

[stinger608]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2347478

Summary: make the big updates manually: like SP3 and IE, then try WU. It will still take forever the first time, but you should get updates at this point.

Thanks Ketchup!

Also if anyone wants to download all the security updates from November 2013 here is the MS address:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41137

This is for all the operating systems from XP up. All updates through November.

Of course it is 2.5gigs but hell that is quicker than sitting and waiting forever.

I installed XP on a rig about 4 or 5 months ago and never had these issues! End of life for XP is near.

 

[ninaholic37]

Also if anyone wants to download all the security updates from November 2013 here is the MS address:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41137

This is for all the operating systems from XP up. All updates through November.

Of course it is 2.5gigs but hell that is quicker than sitting and waiting forever.

Is this everything from after SP3 until November, or just updates for November 2013?

If you're using this instead of Windows Updates, I'd be curious to know how well it works for you.

 

[stinger608]

Is this everything from after SP3 until November, or just updates for November 2013?

If you're using this instead of Windows Updates, I'd be curious to know how well it works for you.

Well after running these it went right to update.microsoft.com and picked right up on the updates. The downloaded disk didn't do much really other than solve the problem of getting the updates. It is still showing 124 critical updates needed.

 

[nemesismk2]

Lots of people have been having similar problems getting Windows XP updated.

 

[Matt1970]

If you do decide to run all the updates, test it for a bit while monitoring svhost.exe in taskmanager to make sure it doesn't start hogging the CPU.

 

[mikeymikec]

If you do decide to run all the updates, test it for a bit while monitoring svhost.exe in taskmanager to make sure it doesn't start hogging the CPU.

And if it does, just leave it to it, for potentially hours.

 

[Matt1970]

I should be more clear. This is after you have run the updates. If it starts hogging the CPU you will need to totally disable windows update.

 

[Iron Woode]

Have a friend that has an ooooooold laptop that we reformatted and reinstalled Windows XP on. Once it was loaded and rebooted it will not do any updates to XP?

Sits and searches for updates hour after hour after hour. Nothing ever happens.

Anyone having this same issue on an old XP system?

I even tried the Microsoft Update site and it still does that same thing.:$

I have had this issue numerous times.

always make sure with WinXP that you do the following:
SP3
IE8
make sure auto update is turned on

if XP still won't update I just let XP sit there on the desktop and wait for auto update to start. This usually fixes the XP-won't-update-when-I-tell-it-to problem.

 

[mikeymikec]

I should be more clear. This is after you have run the updates. If it starts hogging the CPU you will need to totally disable windows update.

If you accept that Windows updates are generally designed to fix security vulnerabilities, and that having security vulnerabilities in your software is bad, then disabling Windows update flies in the face of that logic. Your advice may be sound after April 2014 (if people choose to continue to run XP after that date despite the risks), but not really before then (however one might have other still-supported MS products installed which are updated via WU).

The problem with WU on XP is that it saturates the CPU, however it does complete successfully if left for long enough.

A compromise workaround would be to set the Automatic Updates service to manual, then start it when one is not using your computer for a while. This course of action is reasonably sound if one can trust oneself to do this on a reasonably regular basis (let's say once a week).

Another workaround would be to subscribe to MS's security vulnerability bulletin e-mail list and to download + install updates manually, but that's quite tedious (and the user might miss an update).

What would be really nice of course is for MS to fix this problem properly.

 

[Matt1970]

If you accept that Windows updates are generally designed to fix security vulnerabilities, and that having security vulnerabilities in your software is bad, then disabling Windows update flies in the face of that logic. Your advice may be sound after April 2014 (if people choose to continue to run XP after that date despite the risks), but not really before then.

The problem with WU on XP is that it saturates the CPU, however it does complete successfully if left for long enough.

A compromise workaround would be to set the Automatic Updates service to manual, then start it when one is not using your computer for a while. This course of action is reasonably sound if one can trust oneself to do this on a reasonably regular basis (let's say once a week).

Another workaround would be to subscribe to MS's security vulnerability bulletin e-mail list and to download + install updates manually, but that's quite tedious (and the user might miss an update).

What would be really nice of course is for MS to fix this problem properly.

I don't know how many times you have worked with a saturated CPU but it is not stable and prone to lockups. Maybe you were lucky enough to have a saturated CPU system finally get it's updates, but I haven't. I am lucky to even get windows to connect to the Microsoft website much less download and install updates. Lockups during a windows update can really fubar your system. You can look at it this way, a totally locked up system can't be hacked.

 

[stinger608]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. :awe:

It seems to be updating just fine now. As far as the automatic update I usually just turn that off on all of my own systems and check for updates after the second Tuesday of each month.
However, this being someone else's system I will have to discuss that with the customer.
Once I used the downloaded November 2013 disk it seems to be updating just fine now.

 

[Ketchup]

Considering we are a mere 5 months from bye bye for Windows XP support, I am actually good with turning off updates for XP. I mean, what are we going to miss between now and then? Seems a bit trivial considering the resources used for simply checking for those things in the background, let alone actually performing an update.

Now, if Microsoft were nice, they would release an SP4 in April of '14. Of course, we know they won't, but it would be nice.

 

[Dahak]

I have been seeing this a bit lately too. Generally what it do is
1) install SP3
2) install IE 8
3) install IE 8 Cumulative update (download installer)
4) install all .net frameworks.
5) run .net optimizer so it stops the 50% of cpu usage

then it will usually do the windows updates

 

[mikeymikec]

4) install all .net frameworks.
5) run .net optimizer so it stops the 50% of cpu usage

What ones do you normally install? Also, what and how do you run the .net optimizer? I see a process after .net updates that consumes a fair bit of system time until it has finished and when I checked up on it I had the impression that it was doing some sort of optimisation work, but I haven't looked into triggering it myself before.

Considering we are a mere 5 months from bye bye for Windows XP support, I am actually good with turning off updates for XP. I mean, what are we going to miss between now and then?

The same possibility that you might have missed something at any other time through switching off AU during your use of XP? There are plenty of pirate users, ancient system users, die-hard XP users and other XP-using types for the time being to make it worth targeting (in terms of exploits), and quite often a vulnerability in one version of Windows applies to all versions (XP and up).

 

[Dahak]

What ones do you normally install? Also, what and how do you run the .net optimizer? I see a process after .net updates that consumes a fair bit of system time until it has finished and when I checked up on it I had the impression that it was doing some sort of optimization work, but I haven't looked into triggering it myself before.

I have the offline installer for 2.0 SP1, 3.0 SP1, 3.5 SP1, and 4.0.

Once they are installed I go to c: \windows\microsoft .net\framework\v2.0.50727 or v4.0.30319, I could not tell the deference and then run

ngen executequeueditems that is execute queued items in all one word

let than run through and then it will do what it usually does in the back ground. I also usually re-run that after all the windows updates as there is other security updates

 

[jolancer]

how i take care of it after a fresh install...
1) install SP3, no updates
2) never touch any microsoft software on the machine and delete all shortcuts to them
3) create backup image of the OS partition
4) install competent efficent software

I use to use ms updates too, when i was noob. Till i got tiered of how shitty the OS runs after they pile one patch ontop of another and then they have to install another patch to patch the patch they just gave you LoL.

The same possibility that you might have missed something at any other time through switching off AU during your use of XP? There are plenty of pirate users, ancient system users, die-hard XP users and other XP-using types for the time being to make it worth targeting (in terms of exploits), and quite often a vulnerability in one version of Windows applies to all versions (XP and up).

no offence dude but your a bit paranoid. and personally i think you have a little too much faith in whoever is picking and choosing and coding your security updates. Not to mention your statment sounds completely fulse. how would a malware producer benefit from targeting an old poor smuck running XP apposed to any modern OS that the nieve kids are using sharing all there personal info on these days.

I personally believe it doesn't matter how updated you OS is to a reasonable extent, there is always some type of vaulnerability, however the probability of the type of vaulnerability should be held in reasonable perspective. If you have nothing of value theres no reason for someone to target your machine, aside from basic malware threats which count on human error, updates or not.

A good link for simplicity sake:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...ne-blunders/overview/7-online-blunders-ov.htm

 

[mikeymikec]

no offence dude but your a bit paranoid.

No, I stated facts.

and personally i think you have a little too much faith in whoever is picking and choosing and coding your security updates.

If you believe that, then you ought to switch off any update systems running on your computer.*

Not to mention your statment sounds completely fulse.

How so?

how would a malware producer benefit from targeting an old poor smuck running XP apposed to any modern OS that the nieve kids are using sharing all there personal info on these days.

Eh? Malware producers have been benefiting from producing malware for years. It is big business. Some do it for immediate profit (e.g. ransomware, scam security products), others do it to collect data that has a value in certain markets, others do it do amass botnets... do I need to go on? It sounds like you know absolutely nothing about the reasons for malware production. I'm not sure what naive kids have go to do with this.

I personally believe it doesn't matter how updated you OS is to a reasonable extent, there is always some type of vaulnerability,

That's not a belief, that's a fact. There's no such thing as perfectly-written software (if we exclude absurd examples like 'hello world').

however the probability of the type of vaulnerability should be held in reasonable perspective.

Any software that connects to the Internet is potentially vulnerable. An OS vulnerability often yields full or elevated privileges to the attacker (google for 'critical security vulnerability windows').

If you have nothing of value theres no reason for someone to target your machine,

Yep, you really don't know anything about the reasons for malware production. Most machines are not targeted because of a user's valuable data. If you want some useful reading material, I'm sure I (and plenty of other users on this forum) can come up with some.

aside from basic malware threats which count on human error, updates or not.

Some vulnerabilities require human error to exploit. Those typically aren't labelled as critical in terms of the level of threat.

* - however, I would strongly recommend reading up on this subject that you claim to know something about before taking such a step! I doubt that the general consensus of any security-related forum (or any group of reasonably well-educated individuals with regard to computers) would recommend you do this.

- edit -

I just re-read the first part of your post before you quoted me.

I use to use ms updates too, when i was noob. Till i got tiered of how shitty the OS runs after they pile one patch ontop of another and then they have to install another patch to patch the patch they just gave you LoL.

Who "educated" you to do this?

 

[ninaholic37]

how i take care of it after a fresh install...
1) install SP3, no updates
2) never touch any microsoft software on the machine and delete all shortcuts to them
3) create backup image of the OS partition
4) install competent efficent software

This is what I'm doing as well. I have no use for any Microsoft programs specifically, but the OS itself (XP +SP3) works decently on my 2004 laptop with 512MB ram. There are people who have been using SP2 with no updates since 2005 who claim they've never had any issues, so to them my setup (running Firefox in a sandbox on a limited profile) might be overkill. Lots of botched patches being reported and Microsoft is trying hard to get people to upgrade to Windows 8 so I'm sort on the fence about turning on their Automatic Updates. I can just press F9 during bootup and restore my system to factory settings in 10 minutes, and also have Linux as backup OS on a USB stick, so I'm mostly covered either way. If I can find an SP4 equivalent around April I might do another fresh install and try that and see how it goes (or just buy a Chromebook and sell my XP laptop on kijiji for $25 by then ).

Love reading these XP conversations though, so keep the comments and opinions rolling everyone! :awe:

 

[jolancer]

And for those without a bios with a built in backup function. or those who it may interest or help..

this is the fastest free way I have found to backup and restore ntfs. (i don't have a bios with built in backup as ninaholic37 does)

Live boot any modern linux distro thy have ntfs tools included. and use the $ntfsclone command. After installing everything i use with pagefiles disabled my OS partition is just under 3gigs and litterally takes less than 60seconds(i never timed it but i know its fast) to restore with ntfsclone.. thats on a slow 5400rpm netbook hdd, restoring from same HDD different partition.. probably takes less than 10seconds from an external 7200 or higher modern HD. note- i dont compress the image, but ntfsclones image format only takes up the same amount of Used space thats on the OS.

http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage
http://linux.die.net/man/8/ntfsclone

the commands i used. for any interestd linux noobs. the commands may need interpretation for your system but i know examples help a lot, or i know they would of helped me when i was first trying to figure out linux lol.

#list partitions
$ fdisk -l
#list mount points already in use
$ df -h

#mount linux partition
$ mkdir /mnt/example
$ mount /dev/sda# /mnt/example
#mounting ntfs partitions
$ ntfs-3g /dev/sda# /mnt/example

#backup ntfs hdd1 partition1 to ntfs hdd2 partition3
$ mkdir /mnt/example
$ ntfs-3g /dev/sdb3 /mnt/example
$ mkdir /mnt/example/directory
$ ntfsclone -s -o /mnt/example/directory/name_example.img /dev/sda1

#restore from name_example.img
$ mkdir /mnt/example
$ ntfs-3g /dev/sdb3 /mnt/example
$ ntfsclone -r --overwrite /dev/sda1 /mnt/example/directory/name_example.img