Re: THEY GOT ME

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

Joe wrote:
THOSE BASTARDS GOT ME. WHY did i download that? I knew I didnt need
it but I wasnt sure, I gave ms too much trust. Took me hours to
figure this out. It disabled my mouse and keyboard. Even when you
boot in safemode it still loads this ATIpcie driver. Only way I
could find to fix it was to system restore from the windows disk !

realcestmoi wrote:
Optional drivers, read the treath and do NOT take any non MS
drivers from windows Update.

System restore can be usefull if you did not follow the advice.

joe wrote:
Yes I will definitly do that from now on. However this is clearly a
mistake, an error on their part. Windows update is not meant to
offer irrelevant and downright faulty updates. Defeats the purpose
of the program completely

It has been explained before - many times - on these newsgroups by many
different people that relying on the Windows Updates for hardware drivers
should *not* be done. The hardware drivers that appear there have to be
submitted to Microsoft by the hardware vendors anyway. They have to pay for
the priviledge to have them placed there. There is also a process through
which the drivers to be placed there have to go through to get the
'logo'/'certified'. That all takes time. By the time it is done - usually
several releases from the manufacturer have passed by - sometimes solving
issues with that original driver, sometimes just new features, sometimes
nothing major.

Due to the fact that the driver provided by Microsoft's updates for products
that are non-Microsoft can be older than 'the latest' -> it's usually better
*not* to take the chance. Just because it passed through whatever 'process'
to get the logo/certification does not mean there are not problems with it -
problems that the manufacturer may have found and repaired in later versions
of the driver that they have chosen not to pay Microsoft to test/certify/put
up for them.

The Microsoft update process is (surprisingly - like everything else) not
perfect. Things can and will go wrong - particularly when you throw in the
pure number of variables you speak of when talking about computers and
changing things across millions of them. You can help limit exposure to
problems a bit by changing the downloads to something more manual where
possible or getting the updates manually completely and reading about them
first. The suggestions in these newsgroups about hardware drivers have
almost always been the same:

- Don't update hardware drivers unless it fixes something (or you think it
might fix something) you are actually having trouble with (or if you just
have to have the new feature it might have in it.)
- When updating hardware drivers - get them from the manufacturer of said
hardware. If Microsoft had nothing to do with the creation or support of
the hardware originally - why trust them for it now?

Also - what did you mean by, " I knew I didn't need it but I wasn't sure "?
It's one or the other. You cannot "know you don't need" something and then
"not be sure"... ;-)

In that case (this is not just computer advice) from now own - I suggest you
research and "be sure" before doing something if your gut is telling you
that you don't "need it". ;-) The error here is not __just__ on "their
part" for offering the update - but for those who accepted/installed the
optional update(s) when they "knew [they] didn't need it". ;-)

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


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