Look how old this is! I post at SearchCommander.com now, and this post was published 17 years 6 months 14 days ago. This industry changes FAST, so blindly following the advice here *may not* be a good idea! If you're at all unsure, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and ask.
What an aggravating two days this has been for many people, thanks to a Microsoft Update. I got phone calls or e-mails from several different people about the same issues I had, due to yesterday morning’s update.
Here’s a “workaround” for your problem, if it was caused by Windows Updates this Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
Start in Safe Mode or Safe Mode with networking –
Do this by repeatedly tapping the F5 key at the top of my keyboard. This must be done fairly rapidly at the first white text appearing on the monitor at boot up.
This brings up a menu, where you should chooose “safe mode with networking” by moving the arrow keys on your keyboard and pressing enter for that selection.
Upon boot up, there is a Windows message notifying that diagnostic mode, then hit okay.
Go to Start button – All programs – Accessories – System tools – system restore – and complete the process choosing a date before Wednesday’s Windows update
Complete the restore process and reboot –
Then Turn Off Windows Updates
Right-click on my computer and go to properties
Choose the automatic updates tab, and turn automatic updates off and hit apply.
If you lost any sound or other devices TOO (like I did), here is how to fix that –
Right-click on my computer and go to properties
Go to the hardware tab, and hit the button for Device manager
Use the arrow keys to go down to “sound video and game controllers” and expand to see all devices
Right-click on any devices listed and choose “uninstall” for all that are available.
Go to the “action” menu item, and choose “scan for hardware changes”
That’s it – but beware, because now you have a system that is not being updated with Microsoft’s latest patches. What are we supposed to do now, Microsoft.
Yesterday morning, Wednesday, I woke up to my computer rebooted by Microsoft for the automatic windows updates.
Every time an update is so critical that Microsoft forces a reboot, we all lose every window we had open, and anything in mid-project has to be remembered, and hopefully, everything was saved.
After getting over that frustration, I signed in with my password, where Windows proceeded to get to the desktop, then began starting all my programs, my backup service,my chat, my antivirus, and miscellaneous programs that I have running at all times.
About three quarters of the way through the process the computer rebooted. This went on for four times in a row, before I attempted to boot in safe mode, which was successful.
By this time I’m 45 minutes behind checking my e-mail etc. so I worked my way through the morning e-mail and tasks in safe mode before having to leave for an appointment at 8am.
When I got back, I cited to try again, which was unsuccessful, so I get a Microsoft system restore back to the previous day, and all was well. Obviously, something had gone wrong in the Windows update process, so by going back to the way things were Monday, everything was fine.
Unfortunately, I forgot to turn off automatic updates, so I had to go through the process again this morning! Aggghh –
After getting things back to normal I found that my sound drivers were corrupted somehow, so I could not use my headset and microphone. Looking in the device manager, showed no problems, but I no longer had a microphone or any input ability showing in my Windows volume controls.
Using system restore to go back to previous states did no good either, and in the end, the solution was to manually remove all of my sound drivers (not the codecs) from the device manager, then search for new hardware, then all was founded back to normal.
Thank you again to Microsoft for wasting nearly 2 hours of my time, at inopportune moments over the past two days. Now I’m running an unpatched system, and don’t have time to look around your troubleshooting area for your solution.
So now I’m running an unpatched version of Windows XP…
As the average consumer, am I supposed to drive my computer somewhere or pay someone to come to the office to deal with this?
Since I’m a computer tech (in a previous life) am I supposed to break down and finally install Windows Vista, which has been sitting on my shop bench since January?
The second option makes the most sense because I’m sure that Microsoft has gotten it right this time, with Windows Vista, right? 😉
Windows Update Caused Problems for me July 13, 2007?
You’ve got almost a month before you have to worry about it.;)
Ugh – See how frazzled I was? I couldn’t even tell what month it was!
(title now edited – thanks)
I know your headache. I’ve found a fix for it but you need to download this first, then run the updates, then run the app.
The WinsockXpFix.exe program can be downloaded directly from the author, here:
http://www.iup.edu/house/resnet/WinsockXPFix.exe
OK same here except that now none of my clients running XP can use any FTP programs at all!
The only systems unaffected are Vista boxes… go figure. We have vista and XP boxes on the same network and the Vista boxes can access FTP just fine the XP boxes get a time out and never show the directory ls.
All the systems that we access are using PORT not PASV as they are locked down to avoid hackers.
If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated.
Nick
Vista isn’t immune. My Vista rig was up during the forced “push” early Wednesday morning (June 13th 2007) and when I next tried reading email (Saturday) I found that I couldn’t connect to charter. I hadn’t changed anything, figured an upgrade had caused the problem and noticed that the last email that came in was just prior to the upgrade. I found that there is an interaction with Norton as uninstalling Norton allows Outlook to work. Reinstalling reverts to the same problems. Alternately, uninstalling the Outlook 2007 patch (and leaving Norton) allows email to work.
As an additional headache, I went to pay some bills and found that I couldn’t access the secure site my bank’s homepage redirects me to on login.
Arrggggh! Don’t they test this stuff?!
I too lost about two hours yesterday and then again two today. I’ve now backed out of all the June 13th upgrades and have turned off autoupdate. Thanks Microsoft. Hmph.
thank you Wil – and I intend to try your solution today and will post again if it’s successful or not.
Returning from vacation, I updated my xp home. Firts of all it asked me to install some software so I could access the MS site ( I’ve doen this before), then I downloaded the security updates, malicious software removal. Rebooted Pc and media palyer won’t play avi or dvd files, WinDVD won’t play DVD’s. Did a system restore to two weeks earlier and everything ok again.
So it will only work if I don’t update!!
Thanks Microsoft.
Yeah, I have still not done my updates –
Wil’s URL was bad to the Winsock XP fix –
Hello I just got hit by the auto update and it took out my internet explorer and had big time trouble trying to fix it I’m trying to restore again and lets hope it dont do it again…Where do these things come from and why do they let it cause so much trouble??? Make me want to go to MAC…
Hello again I’ve tried doing it your way 3 times now and still the same got anyother ideas or should I get a relly BIG HAMMER now???? Windows why why why…. its taking so much time and say I’ll leaveit at that for now ah…Reaching for the HAMMER as im doing this…
So even an auto restore back to a further date won’t do it for you? Boy, in that case, I don’t know what to tell you. Format and reinstall, or take the opportunity to buy a new hard drive? That’s what I ended up doing – problem solved in about2 hours…
Perhaps a Windows Vista upgrade will painlessly solve all your problems?
(* This IS a joke – please do not upgrade to Vista, thinking it will solve anything)