From: Robert Aldwinckle on

"Darryl" <Darryl(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5E65EC97-0B09-44AB-BCB5-71C537F2E4CC(a)microsoft.com...
> Well finally, I'm back in business. I booted the Windows CD and did a
> repair. Went pretty smoothly; did have to hunt down a driver file (.MOF?)
> for the network card. Luckily was able to find it on the internet.
>
> After everything was done, had a nasty problem with activation that took
> me
> a few days of Googling to solve: when I logged in, it said I had to
> activate.

> Clicked OK and then nothing happened; just showed the desktop.

> Turns out that activation requires IE8.


More likely just a repair of whatever IE you had. Unfortunately
comprehensive repairs are hard to find and uninstalling and reinstalling IE
is sometimes impossible; so, yes, installing a higher level version of IE
could have been a sufficient repair for your case.


---


> Had to download the IE8 installer from another
> machine, burn it onto a CD, go into safe mode on the problem machine, and
> install it. Upon rebooting after the IE8 install, the activation dialog
> came
> up, hooray! This is the thread that showed me this solution, in case
> anyone
> else hits the problem:
> http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itproxpsp/thread/b991ce21-db5b-46eb-8c9b-f8d4aa14a35a
>
> Once past that, ran Windows Update and installed 65 updates (since SP3)
> without a hitch. Didn't lose a thing; my files, programs, desktop and all
> settings are just as they were. Whew! Now if only I could get back all
> the
> hours I spent to get back to normal ;)
>
> "MowGreen" wrote:
>
>> Darryl wrote:
>> > Well, I think I'm going to throw in the towel and repave this machine,
>> > Mow.
>> > I want to thank you for all the help and sticking with me for all this
>> > time
>> > and trying to figure this one out. You went above and beyond!
>> >
>>
>> You're mowst welcome, Darryl. At least we gave it a shot. Trust me, it
>> was a pleasure working with someone who provides relevant information
>> instead of having to be constantly prodded for it.
>>
>>
>> MowGreen
>> ================
>> * -343-* FDNY
>> Never Forgotten
>> ================
>>
>> banthecheck.com
>> "Security updates should *never* have *non-security content* prechecked
>>
>>
>> .
>>
From: smartbear on
Ran into this problem on Server 2003 SP2 and none of about 6 other proposed
solutions worked. No, I didn't have antivirus software running. This is how
I ultimately was able to "fix" this.

Find the right standalone Windows Update installer, in my case it was the
3.0 version for Server 2003.

Run the installer and watch for the temp directory it creates before
displaying the Next button in the wizard. If you miss it, just look for a
recently created GUID directory off the root of the drive it was unzipped on.

Go into this directory, and you'll see a number of .dll files that
correspond to those in the windows system directory.

As a sanity check, use explorer to check the file properties of wuweb.dll in
the system directory and the wuweb.dll in the unzip directory, and compare
the file versions. Make sure you're installing later versions of these
files. Or it might be easier to just check the windowsupdate.log file - it
records the file versions in the previous failed installs.

Now copy each of the .dll files in the unzip directory to a new directory.
In addition to these files, there are .exe, .cpl and language enabled files
you'll need to copy. The language enabled files will need to be copied to
the appropriate filename, e.g.:
wuaucpl.cpl.mui_en => wuaucpl.cpl.mui

Then for each of the files in your new directory, copy the existing system
files off somewhere, e.g.:

md backup && for %a in (*.*) do copy \windows\system32\%a backup

Boot to a safe mode command line and copy the new set of files into the
system directory. At this point you can run the windows update installer
again and check the windowsupdate.log file again - I missed one file doing
this and it pointed out the one I'd missed. If you copied the files
correctly the log will show there was nothing to do.

Yes, this is a PITA, but if I done this in the first place instead of trying
the various proposed "solutions" it would have saved me several aggravating
hours. I don't, however, know if this removes the underlying problem or
whether it might happen again on the next attempted update.

Eric

"Darryl" wrote:
>
> I'm starting to think that the only solution is going to be repaving this
> machine!
>
>
From: PA Bear [MS MVP] on
> ...I didn't have antivirus software running. This is
> how I ultimately was able to "fix" this.

Not having "antivirus software running" is why you needed to fix it!


smartbear wrote:
> Ran into this problem on Server 2003 SP2 and none of about 6 other
> proposed
> solutions worked. No, I didn't have antivirus software running. This is
> how I ultimately was able to "fix" this.
>
> Find the right standalone Windows Update installer, in my case it was the
> 3.0 version for Server 2003.
>
> Run the installer and watch for the temp directory it creates before
> displaying the Next button in the wizard. If you miss it, just look for a
> recently created GUID directory off the root of the drive it was unzipped
> on.
>
> Go into this directory, and you'll see a number of .dll files that
> correspond to those in the windows system directory.
>
> As a sanity check, use explorer to check the file properties of wuweb.dll
> in
> the system directory and the wuweb.dll in the unzip directory, and compare
> the file versions. Make sure you're installing later versions of these
> files. Or it might be easier to just check the windowsupdate.log file -
> it
> records the file versions in the previous failed installs.
>
> Now copy each of the .dll files in the unzip directory to a new directory.
> In addition to these files, there are .exe, .cpl and language enabled
> files
> you'll need to copy. The language enabled files will need to be copied to
> the appropriate filename, e.g.:
> wuaucpl.cpl.mui_en => wuaucpl.cpl.mui
>
> Then for each of the files in your new directory, copy the existing system
> files off somewhere, e.g.:
>
> md backup && for %a in (*.*) do copy \windows\system32\%a backup
>
> Boot to a safe mode command line and copy the new set of files into the
> system directory. At this point you can run the windows update installer
> again and check the windowsupdate.log file again - I missed one file doing
> this and it pointed out the one I'd missed. If you copied the files
> correctly the log will show there was nothing to do.
>
> Yes, this is a PITA, but if I done this in the first place instead of
> trying
> the various proposed "solutions" it would have saved me several
> aggravating
> hours. I don't, however, know if this removes the underlying problem or
> whether it might happen again on the next attempted update.
>
> Eric
>
> "Darryl" wrote:
>>
>> I'm starting to think that the only solution is going to be repaving this
>> machine!