Cannot do updates at all on XP Home

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From: Vince C. (none_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 12/19/04 

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 16:38:54 +0100

Hi.

A friend came to me with a HP laptop she bought one year ago. She told me the
anti virus didn't start anymore. I uninstalled Norton Internet Security and
installed AVG instead. I know NIS is a resource hog and I prefer free,
functional tools.

Now I wanted to appply already downloaded updates. There were approximately
20-25 of them. I selected Custom install and the update ran in less than 5...
seconds! I wanted to check Windows Update web site and I got an error message
"Your security settings do not allow execution of ActiveX controls".

I downloaded the full SP2 install program (260 MB). After it decompresses all
the files, I get an error: "File not found" then "The installation of didn't run
correctly" (or "L'installation de ne s'est pas déroulée correctement", word upon
word). The system is XP home, French. Note: I translated error messages into
English hence they might not fit the real English ones.

The facts:

1. Updates are not applied automatically
2. Applying updates manually doesn't work either
3. Installing service pack doesn't work for reasons I ignore.

Results: system totally insecure, unpatched.

1. She has admin rights
2. I deleted temp. internet files, offline content included
3. There are no viruses (I checked that thouroughly)
4. There are no spywares (I checked that thouroughly, too)
5. All security settings are restored to their default values, *.microsoft.com
being in the trusted zone (hmmm...)

What should she do, apart from reinstalling Windows of course?

TIA,
Vince C.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Or have they? What does the cryptic "installer error = False" mean?
    ... Now it seems there was an erroneous error message: ... in the taskbar saying 'click here to install downloaded updates', ... ACTUALLY installing these updates' ... ActiveSync 4.5 isn't installed: However, while I am typing this I ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsupdate)
  • Re: Or have they? What does the cryptic "installer error = False"
    ... Have you tried uninstalling Active Sync, installing updates, reinstalling ... And they didn't install on restarting and trying again ... updates and immediately I clicked on INSTALL, gave me the error message ... ActiveSync 4.5 isn't installed: However, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsupdate)
  • Re: Or have they? What does the cryptic "installer error = False"
    ... Security Update for Office XP ... didn't install. ... in the taskbar saying 'click here to install downloaded updates', ... updates and immediately I clicked on INSTALL, gave me the error message ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsupdate)
  • Re: Unable to Access the Local Computer ....
    ... version, corruption, etc. Using sfc will may require the install cd. ... When you install updates or software in the future be sure ... > Related problem when I try to add directory persmissions: ... > get the following error message: ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.networking)
  • Re: Unable to Access the Local Computer ....
    ... version, corruption, etc. Using sfc will may require the install cd. ... When you install updates or software in the future be sure ... > Related problem when I try to add directory persmissions: ... > get the following error message: ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.security)