Bad Windows Vista Updates

[Richardk]

I reinstalled an old machine which happens to have Vista on it and decided to let it install the updates. It seems that at some point it fails and the machine just keeps rebooting. Using the install disk I can do a repair but it's automated and it goes back a few restore points instead of to the last one.

I thought I "skipped" over the 'bad update' but a few more appear, it updates and bam, I'm back to the same problem.

Are there any good ways to sort, organize, review the updates to figure out what's going on? An unsorted big long list is almost useless and it seems that the updates never stop. I get down to a handful and the next time it has another 20 or 30 to install. This is maddening.

[I D Shukhov]

I had something similar happen on a Windows 7 machine that had been turned off for a while. 

First off, I'd not select any optional updates, just the important or critical ones.  If at any point something strange happens you may be able to reboot and  navigate to control panel ->  System and Security -> Action Center -> Troubleshooting -> Fix Problems with Windows Update.

When I've had to fix update problems, Windows would always say it and found and fixed problems and I've been able to move forward with updating.  Like you wrote, after I thought I was done with one batch, more would be presented to me.  It took me several iterations and troubleshooting sessions until I finally got the computer updated.

[Richardk]

Yes, it seems like it's a problem with Win 7 as well.

I've done what you suggest but when it 'crashes' it just keeps rebooting. At that point it's bricked but the install CD brings it back.

It's times like this that I wish Windows had a live CD that you could boot from.

I started with over 1,100 updates and now it's a small group but it's so painful to keep track of which one I've installed unless I really want to do one at a time. I also wonder if it's two updates interacting with each other.

This is such a huge time waster.

[DarkHumour]

times like this that I wish Windows had a live CD that you could boot from.

It is a basic o/s environment but if you get the Windows AIK you can make Windows PE 3.0 boot cds/dvds based off the Windows 7 environment. You can add drivers and scripts to the build.  I make several versions for work and personal use.  I grabbed the BART PE McAfee plug in and run it from the booted cd.  Other stuff like robocopy, notepad, regedit, and chkdsk are native programs.  I use it to fix or reimage XP environments all the time.  Ghost32, Ghost Server, and ImageX/GimageX  work like a charm. 

Having a 'bart disk' or this WinPE disk is pretty useful for repairs or running an image-backup of a system.

DarkHumour

[Richardk]

Thanks that does ring a bell but I have to look that up again.

So a 'bart disk' and WinPE are two different things, right? Is one better than the other or more useful in certain circumstances?

[codger]

Makes me wonder:

Slightly off topic, but I've been lurking on this thread for a few days, and wonder what a regular, non-technical, non-wealthy user does when their Windows PC is suddenly turned into a brick. What do they do? Who do they contact?

It's difficult enough when this happens to a technically-inclined user, but what about everyone else?

Trash the PC and buy a  new one?
Contact their technoid nephew?
Call Microsoft? Can't use Internet when their only PC is dead.
Other possibilities?

[The Gorn]

If they're smart and they don't know anyone, they go to some reliable source of info like Angies List and they select a PC technician service.

If they don't know anyone and they're cheap, they take a tear-off from a posting on a public bulletin board in a supermarket, where allowed.

I think most people of Wal-Mart (the general American public) either give away the PC to a family member or charity, or they find the restore disks and try to restore themselves.

[DarkHumour]

Thanks that does ring a bell but I have to look that up again.

So a 'bart disk' and WinPE are two different things, right? Is one better than the other or more useful in certain circumstances?

BartPE is a branch (borderline piracy but tolerated by MS) of the original XP based WinPE.  WinPE was pretty much for deployments only, not for booting to Windows environments for repairs or a quicky o/s which was why BartPE was invented. The latest WinPE based on Windows 7 has more functions than the original one I think. I never attempted to customize WinPE 1 or 2. (BartPE already exists. Why bother?)   Up until a few years ago I used BartPE for most of my troubleshooting and repairing of client computers.  I was surprised to see a corporate client use it with a ghost restore solution in their environment officially a few years ago. 

Since I'm trying to get ImageX/GimageX adopted (or at least allowed to continue using it) in my current workplace I stuck with the official WinPE software from MS. I think the vista/win 7 dvd install disks boot into WinPE before installing the O/S software.

BartPE has more functionality and 'plugins' out there.  There are even pay versions.   Recent HP desktop boot cd utilities (ISO file on their website) run WinPE.  Hmm, I wonder if I could customize their build...

Another useful boot disk is the "Hiren BootCD" but all the utilities are pirated so it is basically warez.

DarkHumour

[benali72]

Windows needs to allow users to do a backup/recovery of their system. As pointed out in this thread, the "automated" means MS provides (like System Restore Points and Repair) are not sufficient. But MS can't/won't allow normal B/R solutions due to concern about piracy. Caveat emptor.

[Walter Mitty]

Codger,

I've often wondered about that myself.  I've even wondered if I should become one of those people that everybody takes his trashed PC to.  Not that I would necessarily be any good at it. 

Here's what I think I've seen, among the people I know.  Years ago, they took it to the leader of their personality cult.  That person would diagnose the problem as a failed motherboard,  replace the motherboard,  reformat the disk, and reinstall the original software.  This fixes the problem, even if the diagnosis was wrong.

At a later point in time,  they would buy a laptop, which they wanted anyway.  They would keep the brick around,  just in case.

Now,  I think they are buying some kind of smart hand held device.  And they keep their stuff on the cloud.  Non technical people don't talk to me about technical matters.  The only thing worse than talking to a technical person is talking to a formerly techncial person.  Or so it seems. 

As for me, if the computer I'm on right now were irreparably broken,  I'd probably buy another one.  But I would really want the backup I made once a month of my critical files.  That's the stuff I really value.

[Richardk]

Codger & Walter,

I've fixed a few for family and friends and in general it's either 'easy' or a total waste of time (when considering your fee).

Most people don't do backups but I've been able to recover data, most of the time. So that's a win.

As a "business", one person who regularly does this told me that it must be a 20 minute fix or he reformats and reinstalls. Assuming of course that it's a software issue. And his clients seem to be ok with reinstalling everything.

At first I was appalled but after having done a few, it's the only way to make any money doing this if this is your business. If it's not a quick fix, you'll waste all your profits away.

In my case it's a new hard drive, fresh install but the Windows updates crash the system. So I'm right back to becoming a time waster. If this was a "paid" job, I'm not sure what I'd do. I guess the lesson is bring it back to 'factory specs' and let the user update all his software, which is probably what the reformat / reinstall guy does.

Lesson learned, if I "go into business".

[The Gorn]

As a "business", one person who regularly does this told me that it must be a 20 minute fix or he reformats and reinstalls. Assuming of course that it's a software issue. And his clients seem to be ok with reinstalling everything.

At first I was appalled but after having done a few, it's the only way to make any money doing this if this is your business. If it's not a quick fix, you'll waste all your profits away.

I ran into this and it was one of the reasons I got out of this work.

I found that most consumers and small business customers are incredibly stupid about their data and they don't respect it until it vanishes, then they bawl like little babies, and this after you told them that they will be screwed if they don't protect their data.

You're supposed to do everything for about $100.

In particular almost no home customer will pay to protect or recover their data in an extreme situation. I also found that almost all PC crashes or problems that result in a non bootable PC are extreme situations, IE, if you follow the product instructions and use the system recovery procedure, you format the partition and lose all of their data. Almost every crashed or virus ridden PC requires a lot of work and trial and error to recover the data reliably.

I also found that a big red stupid bit comes on in the general public when you try to describe what they can expect if they lowball the repair.

I once had a woman call me who was beside herself because her computer was trashed, and she had purchased a new computer, but she did not have backups. She did believe that her pictures, business records, etc were intact on the crashed system.

I told her I would charge her $200 (!!!) to drive out to her location, pick up her system, recover the data, and deliver the system back to her with a set of backup DVDs containing her data.

Note to everyone if you hadn't  caught on, I was probably pricing my services at $50 an hour or less when you take all the time into account.

She acted like this was a fortune and said she really didn't know and she'd have to talk to her husband (sexist remark here: I got that "I need to talk to my husband" from several women who balked at my prices.)

The offer didn't stand, of course, I never heard back from her. I had like experiences with several customers. I'd bend over backwards to recover their data and they acted like I was ripping them off.

Most PC owners are "People of Wal-Mart" in every respect. Backward, cost paranoid, and really stupid. The "aware" are a tiny minority of the public.

[Richardk]

Wow, I couldn't say it better and that's the way it is with most consumers and small business owners. And I'll second that most of their computer problems are "non bootable PC's" in "extreme situations".

[DarkHumour]

[I told her I would charge her $200 (!!!) to drive out to her location, pick up her system, recover the data, and deliver the system back to her with a set of backup DVDs containing her data.

And you're way *under* what most data recovery services start at.  Up to another zero depending on if they have to take the drive apart and use a clean room.  The last recovery I performed was on one of my own drives, a slightly larger spare, and a sector cloning tool.  I did NOT want to do recovery from a hard drive making the horrible clunking noises.  I just cloned what I could to another drive and then recovered the data from that.  Using a dual core machine it still took about 12 hours just for the cloning aspect.  (Near full 160GB hard drive). 

I've had several sata drives crap out on me over the past few years... makes me think my decision to switch from SCSI to 'save money' and to gain a better $/gigabyte ratio was a bad idea.

I made the mistake of running a raid mirroring program improperly from a dying hard drive to a new one.  Inadvertantly killed the c partition of a client's pc.  Fortunately the d drive had all the data (how I usually set up machines so when windows eventually dies, the data is left intact). I just had to rebuild Windows from scratch...  That mistake made me near suicidal.

I highly recommend spending the extra $10 to $15 to get an advanced drive replacement included with the shipping box  if the equipment is under warranty.  That way you can dump your data to a spare first before attempting recovery.

DarkHumour

[The Gorn]

I was only offering to sleuth the data from her My Documents and Program Files trees and anyplace else, and copy them to DVDs. I needed to drag the PC home here in order to control the hard drive and have a work environment suitable to do this, I would not do it on site. So I was offering a lower tier service, not like recovery of actual broken HDDs.

Experiences just like that really set me in a very antagonistic mood for personal and home computing purchasers and reinforced my desire to do only B2B work. In fact, it extends to my copywriting, because I would really rather do copy for B2B than for B2C.

I think personal users are generally idiots & knuckleheads, Q.E.D. The caliber of people on this board are probably 0.001% of the general public and you guys and me aren't even representative of the typical home computer repair client.