Need WinXP updates

[gwilks98]

Does anyone know of a way to download all of the critical updates for WinXP so that I can install them without needed a connection to the internet?

Aside from being easier than dialing up to do it, WinXP is hanging on the installation of certain updates. I would like to see if that fixes the problem.

Any suggestions?

[seqiro]

When you go to the Windows Update site, there is a link along the left column that says "Personalize Windows Update". Click on that and on the next screen that appears, click on the box that says "Display the link to the Windows Update Catalog under See Also".

That will make the "Windows Update Catalog" link show up on the left. Now click that and you can then search for updates that you want to do download.

[gwilks98]

Thanks dude. Any idea why Windows was hanging when trying to install the critical updates? I only have 10 left, and they were all done downloading.

[seqiro]

I have run into situations where if you are behind a proxy server, some of the updates (especially service packs) won't work because it never asks you for login credentials for the proxy and thus fails.

The DirectX 9.0b update is an example where it DOES ask.

[gwilks98]

As far as I know, I'm not behind a proxy. (I'm on dial up.)

Windows downloads the updates just fine, but hangs on the "preparing to install" spot. It does this even if I download the updates and run them locally.

I AM installing them from an admin account, so I don't get it. There is apparently a stepping mode that will let you walk an install through it's setup, but I couldn't get that to work either. I've tried this with Norton Antivirus both on and off.

I re-installed Windows over the current copy with no avail.

Any other sugguestions? This is driving me crazy.

[gwilks98]

BUMP

Please help, anyone....

[seqiro]

Try re-installing your Windows Installer:

Reinstall Windows Installer
To reinstall the Windows Installer, follow these steps.

NOTE: Because there are several versions of Microsoft Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If they are, see your product documentation to complete these steps.

Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.

Windows opens a command prompt window.

At the command prompt, type one of the following commands, and then press ENTER, where drive and Windows are the drive and folder where Windows is installed.

If you are running Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 2000, or Microsoft Windows NT, type the following:
attrib -r -s -h drive:\Windows\System32\dllcache

If you are running Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition, type the following:
attrib -r -s -h drive:\Windows\System32

At the command prompt, type the following. Press ENTER after you type each line.
ren msi.dll msi.old
ren msiexec.exe msiexec.old
ren msihnd.dll msihnd.old

At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER.
Restart your computer.

[Joshua]

Before doing that, I'd suggest you try to reregister it. Click Start | Run, type "CMD" (no quotes) and hit enter. now type msiexec /unreg followed by msiexec /regserver.

[gwilks98]

I got it working, thought I'm not quite sure what I did. I re-registered the msiexec file (thanks Snotty) and afterwards, it installed 1 (and only one) file. So I renamed the files (thanks Seqiro) and it didn't auto-reinstall. (???)

So I renamed the files back and tried to enable logging for the windows installer in accordance with the microsoft knowledgebase. I couldn't get that to work so I started playing with the services.

I FINALLY got a prompt from the install files saying they were failing to stop 5 services or so. (The most notorious were SMTP, IIS and World Wide Web something...)

I set those to "manual" instead of automatic and rebooted, which finally allowed me to run the updates.

So, thanks to for the help. I'm not sure what did the trick, but I'm glad it's running.

Is there any harm in setting a service to manual? If a program needs it, it will run it automatically, right?

[rajatQ2]

Originally posted by gwilks98

Is there any harm in setting a service to manual? If a program needs it, it will run it automatically, right?

Exactly. It shouldn't cause any problems.


Services like IIS that are 'serving' clients on the outside would never start on their own. as far as i know, they don't have a 'trigger' to listen on port 80 and start iis if a request comes in. That would be baaaaaad if iis came with that.