KB2926765 Bad May Update on Windows 7 leaves system unusable.

Hi Ranger4, had already checked my A.F.P. was up to date after reading other postings, normally have A.F.P. set to 'notify me to install updates' but now showing Automatic Installs, strange. But just in case Adobe Flash Player 13.0.0.214 was causing an issue with KB2926765 update i did full uninstall of A.F.P. reinstalled KB2926765 but still getting the same issue as before, have uninstalled KB2926765 update and everything is back to normal. Note ; check out these threads.
Patch Tuesday again so?
"Windows Explorer has stopped working" on startup after update
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Hi Dukes,

Uninstalling KB2926765 most definitely does the trick. This is exactly what happened after installing KB2798162 a while back. More and more people are reporting issues with this update. Wish someone from Microsoft would chime in with a fix.
I have posed the question on the Microsoft Community site but have yet to get a reasonable explanation.
I don't believe it has anything to do with Adobe Flash Player update as others have suggested.

Hi Noel,
To quote from one of my earlier posts:
"Having learned this lesson twice before I now run full AV and malware scans with 5 programs and then image my drive before doing windows updates. It only takes me ten minutes to get back up and running when disaster happens."

It is not virus related.
I am also curious as to what "This type of update means"
What type of update is it exactly.

I just had the exact same problem. I installed a bunch of Windows updates, and after the reboot it didn't have file associations for .exe files. Like the original poster (MTS52), I restored my computer and started installing the updates (then rebooting), one by one, until it happened again. I found KB2926765 to directly be the cause. I restored again, loaded every update BUT KB2926765, and no problems. I don't know that I agree with the whole Java update being part of the problem. I work with Cisco gear, and a few months back the Java update killed ASDM. I had to uninstall Java and install a previous version (on my work PC). Being that I work from home sometimes, I haven't updated Java on my personal PC in months. So I had this problem and no java update was ever involved. Hope this helps.

Hi tbone7698 you are right about Java not being the problem, I uninstalled and cleared anything to do with Java from my PC a good six months ago after the last round of scares associated with Java, I regularly run scans on my PC ie: Kaspersky I.S. / MS windows malicious software removal tool / Kaspersky TDSSKiller / Malwarebytes all good. It's looking more like that KB2926765 is a just bad update affecting different Pc's in different ways depending on what the Pc is asked to do, I only found out after trying to open a simple zip file. Hope this helps to shed more light on the problem.

KB2926765 Problems Resolved,

After days of trying to find a fix for this update not installing I thought to check the firewall history.
I use Online Armour firewall with HIPS and sure enough it was blocking Shell32.dll at startup.
This was preventing the firewall, avast and all other startup programs from executing.
For that matter any exe at all.

I tried the update again, then disconnected from the net and put the firewall into learning mode for the reboot. I am still confused as to how the firewall was blocking anything at all as it wasn't starting.
If anyone else is still having trouble installing this update see if it is firewall related.

Good Luck.

We are having the exact same issue on Win7 Pro 64-bit - upon restart after installing this update none of the startup programs will load and all .EXE files are inaccessible. I've been unable to find any fix. We ARE NOT using any 3rd party firewall programs - we run the default Microsoft programs for firewall and Win Security Essentials. I've tried setting a restore point before installing the update but after restarting cannot access the "Restore" programs, even when a computer is started in SAFE MODE. The only solution has been to restore the computer to it's post-update mode from an image backup and ignore this update.


Any solution is welcome as I hate to leave an "Important" security update uninstalled. How about a solid fix from MS.


Bill