Hulver's site || Well isn't THAT interesting...

Diaries
Everything
Who's Online?
FAQ / Help

Well isn't THAT interesting...

By BadDoggie (Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 09:32:39 AM EST) Microsoft, Windows, bullshit (all tags)

The Windows update site now requires that the "Automatic Services" and "Background Transfer" services not only be running but must be permanently switched on (i.e., set to Automatic). It's also impossible to avoid Genuine Disadvantage if you install fresh.

I gave up trying to make the 1TB SATA my Drive:0 and picked up a cheap 400G IDE which is probably for the best. The three-year-old (Athlon 2400+ or something like that) box will soon be living and breathing again as a game machine and Photoshop workstation. To that end it needs Windows.

After about 90 minutes of Winstall hell I finally got to the Teletubbies starting screen and went to town, clearing up the bullshit, removing all the stupidities from this "Professional" version that Aunt Betty would think are just so peachy which don't even belong on the fucking Home version much less the fucking "Pro", ran some utilities and went to windowsupdate.microsoft.com. Big fun.

I ran XPantispy and, as usual in the Winblows world, rebooted again after getting the MS downloads which finally recognised my video and sound cards. When I went back to get SP2 and the 720MB of additional updates, it failed. The site said that the above-named services (along with Event Viewer which should always be running) had to be running.

I opened up services.msc and started the two killed services. WinUpdate still failed. Checked that EV was running. Killed IE, cleared the cache, restarted. Failed again. Then it dawned on me: on the failure page it says "...services must be running..." Are they checking to see whether they're perm-on? Yes they are. It doesn't matter that they're running during update installation, they must be set to Automatic or MS will refuse to continue.

WTF?!

< OP: Back To Skool | BBC White season: 'Rivers of Blood' >

Login

Related Links

- BadDoggie's Diary

Google

Comment Controls

Well isn't THAT interesting... | 11 comments (11 topical, 1 hidden) | Trackback

WTF? by hulver (4.00 / 1) #1 Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 02:24:13 PM EST

Seriously.
--
smart, pretty, sane. pick two - georgeha

I don't get it by dmg (4.00 / 1) #2 Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 02:31:40 PM EST

Microsoft are just trying to make sure you get the genuine Windows experience you paid for. What's the problem here?
--
We are witnessing the last few years of the Monarchy. Enjoy!

Cue Fanboy Sanctimony in 5,4,3,2... by CheeseburgerBrown (2.00 / 0) #3 Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 03:15:19 PM EST

Funny, my GNU Linux Macintosh Born-Again-Amiga never gives me that kind of trouble.

I am from a small, unknown country in the north called Ca-na-da.

yeah but you own a mac by MillMan (2.00 / 0) #4 Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 04:11:48 PM EST

When I'm imprisoned as an enemy combatant, will you blog about it?
[ Parent ]

Hush! by CheeseburgerBrown (4.00 / 1) #6 Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 07:58:03 PM EST

I still haven't come out to my parents.

I am from a small, unknown country in the north called Ca-na-da.
[ Parent ]

: My Amiga 500 runs great by Troll Hard (2.00 / 3) #8 Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 08:15:54 PM EST

and with AmigaDOS 2.0 it runs faster than a Dual Core Celeron M 2.0 Ghz Vista Home Premium edition machine with 1 G of RAM. That is because Vista is bloated with crap I don't need and the Amiga is streamlined to run fast even at 7.16Mhz and 2M of RAM.
If I can afford to upgrade it, I'd run AmigaOS 3.9 on it with a PPC accelerator card.

[ Parent ]
: You haven't even come out to your wife yet by BadDoggie (2.00 / 0) #9 Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 09:48:04 PM EST

And she reads this site!
woof.
OMG WE'RE FUCKED! -- duxup ?
[ Parent ]

Evil by Herring (2.00 / 0) #5 Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 05:26:50 PM EST

I did a repair a couple of days ago and Windows Update decided to fail. It wasn't until I saw the Register story that I found out what was going on and "fixed" it.

The only option is to steal a copy of the "Volume License Edition" which, I suspect, you must be able to bypass auto-updates on.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge - Charles Darwin

: Or you can use BitTorrent by Troll Hard (2.50 / 2) #7 Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 08:13:12 PM EST

and get the Windows 2000/XP/2003 Install CD with just the basic core system, that is the "educational edition" that never fails Genuine Disadvantage and actually passes it.
You also have the option to install Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 Server instead of XP Pro.
You won't get crap like System Restore, IIS, Remote Access, etc. You will get a system that auto updates without being suspected of being a pirated copy, and that runs at a much better speed than the standard install.
If you don't mind waiting a few years, you can use ReactOS when it goes into Beta Test and being able to use most Windows drivers as well as DirectX support, etc.

[ Parent ]
: I also 'suspect' this is the case. by garlic (2.00 / 0) #11 Tue Oct 09, 2007 at 09:17:09 AM EST

[ Parent ]

Well isn't THAT interesting... | 11 comments (11 topical, 1 hidden) | Trackback