Can't set restore points; Can't install .NET 4 updates

[rcdunbar]

SevenForums was recommended through my computer club (Phila Area Computer Society); I hope you can help me solve two, possibly inter-related problems in my Windows 7 system. These problems did not exists for the PC's first few years.

1 I am unable to create a restore point, or revert to a previous restore point, or configure restore settings. In the System Properties window, System Protection tab the System Restore, Configure, and Create buttons are always disabled (grayed out), and no drives are listed under "Available Drives", only the word Searching... . Consequently updates and other actions that normally create a restore points first either fail or never get going.

2 Win7 is unable to install a group of a dozen .NET 4 updates. It has tried and failed many times in recent months. Other Windows updates install without incident. And now I can't update or even open Visual Studio 2010 Pro: it fails with the message "Exception is thrown by the target of an invocation". But I frequently get pop-up notices from Visual Studio that an application file has experienced an unhandled exception. It's always the same 5 or 6 non-Windows files (I always chose not to trouble-shoot); but those applications don't always fail as a result.

Otherwise, my home-built (4 years ago) PC, with Win7 Pro and a variety of Microsoft and 3rd party apps work well. The PC has 4GB of RAM, a 3GHz Intel dual core CPU, and plenty of free space on C:\ and the three other hard drive partitions. Internet access via Verizon FiOS works very well (and very fast), protected by Norton Internet Security. My default browser is FireFox, but I also use IE9. Both work OK. Here's what I have tried so far, to no avail:

Ran MalwareBytes on C:\ and the other 3 active partitions; it found nothing.
Ran Sophos Virus Removal tool, which supposedly looks for rootkits; it says "your system is clean".
Ran System File Checker (from the command prompt): according to the log it found and fixed a number of corrupted files, mostly, it seemed, in Internet Explorer.
Ran the Windows Fixit Tool, and verified that the Volume Shadow Copy service had started.
Ran the System Readiness Tool for 32-bit Win7 (System Update Readiness Tool fixes Windows Update errors in Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008 ). Both CheckSUR logs, which were identical, reported no errors.

It sure seems like there's a faulty Registry entry and/or a corrupted file. Or could this be a permissions issue? Or a service that fails to start? I would appreciate any insight, advice, and words of wisdom.

 

[benjy206]

SevenForums was recommended through my computer club (Phila Area Computer Society); I hope you can help me solve two, possibly inter-related problems in my Windows 7 system. These problems did not exists for the PC's first few years.

1 I am unable to create a restore point, or revert to a previous restore point, or configure restore settings. In the System Properties window, System Protection tab the System Restore, Configure, and Create buttons are always disabled (grayed out), and no drives are listed under "Available Drives", only the word Searching... . Consequently updates and other actions that normally create a restore points first either fail or never get going.

2 Win7 is unable to install a group of a dozen .NET 4 updates. It has tried and failed many times in recent months. Other Windows updates install without incident. And now I can't update or even open Visual Studio 2010 Pro: it fails with the message "Exception is thrown by the target of an invocation". But I frequently get pop-up notices from Visual Studio that an application file has experienced an unhandled exception. It's always the same 5 or 6 non-Windows files (I always chose not to trouble-shoot); but those applications don't always fail as a result.

Otherwise, my home-built (4 years ago) PC, with Win7 Pro and a variety of Microsoft and 3rd party apps work well. The PC has 4GB of RAM, a 3GHz Intel dual core CPU, and plenty of free space on C:\ and the three other hard drive partitions. Internet access via Verizon FiOS works very well (and very fast), protected by Norton Internet Security. My default browser is FireFox, but I also use IE9. Both work OK. Here's what I have tried so far, to no avail:

Ran MalwareBytes on C:\ and the other 3 active partitions; it found nothing.
Ran Sophos Virus Removal tool, which supposedly looks for rootkits; it says "your system is clean".
Ran System File Checker (from the command prompt): according to the log it found and fixed a number of corrupted files, mostly, it seemed, in Internet Explorer.
Ran the Windows Fixit Tool, and verified that the Volume Shadow Copy service had started.
Ran the System Readiness Tool for 32-bit Win7 (System Update Readiness Tool fixes Windows Update errors in Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008 ). Both CheckSUR logs, which were identical, reported no errors.

It sure seems like there's a faulty Registry entry and/or a corrupted file. Or could this be a permissions issue? Or a service that fails to start? I would appreciate any insight, advice, and words of wisdom.

Hi rcdunbar and welcome to Seven Forums.

Are you using sophos anti virus? Or what anti virus are you using?

Can you try running this please?
Download



Don't delete anything yet just run it "Search" and post the text file here please http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

 

[mitchell65]

SevenForums was recommended through my computer club (Phila Area Computer Society); I hope you can help me solve two, possibly inter-related problems in my Windows 7 system. These problems did not exists for the PC's first few years.

1 I am unable to create a restore point, or revert to a previous restore point, or configure restore settings. In the System Properties window, System Protection tab the System Restore, Configure, and Create buttons are always disabled (grayed out), and no drives are listed under "Available Drives", only the word Searching... . Consequently updates and other actions that normally create a restore points first either fail or never get going.

2 Win7 is unable to install a group of a dozen .NET 4 updates. It has tried and failed many times in recent months. Other Windows updates install without incident. And now I can't update or even open Visual Studio 2010 Pro: it fails with the message "Exception is thrown by the target of an invocation". But I frequently get pop-up notices from Visual Studio that an application file has experienced an unhandled exception. It's always the same 5 or 6 non-Windows files (I always chose not to trouble-shoot); but those applications don't always fail as a result.

Otherwise, my home-built (4 years ago) PC, with Win7 Pro and a variety of Microsoft and 3rd party apps work well. The PC has 4GB of RAM, a 3GHz Intel dual core CPU, and plenty of free space on C:\ and the three other hard drive partitions. Internet access via Verizon FiOS works very well (and very fast), protected by Norton Internet Security. My default browser is FireFox, but I also use IE9. Both work OK. Here's what I have tried so far, to no avail:

Ran MalwareBytes on C:\ and the other 3 active partitions; it found nothing.
Ran Sophos Virus Removal tool, which supposedly looks for rootkits; it says "your system is clean".
Ran System File Checker (from the command prompt): according to the log it found and fixed a number of corrupted files, mostly, it seemed, in Internet Explorer.
Ran the Windows Fixit Tool, and verified that the Volume Shadow Copy service had started.
Ran the System Readiness Tool for 32-bit Win7 (System Update Readiness Tool fixes Windows Update errors in Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008 ). Both CheckSUR logs, which were identical, reported no errors.

It sure seems like there's a faulty Registry entry and/or a corrupted file. Or could this be a permissions issue? Or a service that fails to start? I would appreciate any insight, advice, and words of wisdom.

Hi rcdunbar and welcome to Seven Forums.

Are you using sophos anti virus? Or what anti virus are you using?

Can you try running this please?
Download



Don't delete anything yet just run it "Search" and post the text file here please http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

Please see above for A/V!

 

[benjy206]

Please see above for A/V!

Thanks for that Missed that

 

[Britton30]

Welcome to Seven Forums rcdunbar.

Give option three a try here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91738-windows-update-reset.html#post790804
Try to install the .NET 4 updates one at a time.

This may help, run the steps outlined in this tutorial, Option Two, and reboot the system:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html#post14392
If that doesn't correct the issue, run it two or more times with a reboot between.
You may get this result:

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired
them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For
example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log
The system file repair changes will take effect after the next reboot.

Or a message that no integrity violations were found.
Or that Windows Resource Protection found errors it cannot repair, if so rerun the steps above.

 

[rcdunbar]

Can't set restore points; can't install .NET 4 updates

Thanks, Mitchell65,

Norton Internet Security has been my default anti-virus and firewall protection suite for several years. I downloaded and ran Malwarebytes and Sophos only in the last few days as tools to help solve this problem.

I downloaded and ran AdwCleaner (search only) as you requested; the log file is attached. The most glaring thing that I can identify is "wecarereminder". I don't know what it's for, but I think it's been on the machine for some time.

 

[benjy206]

You can go ahead and select the "Delete" option post back and let me know the results

 

[rcdunbar]

Hi Benjy206,

As you directed I ran AdwCleaner in Delete mode, and the resulting log shows that it did delete everything it had detected. Unfortunately that didn't help - I am still completely locked out of Restore Point, as described in my original post.

I think my next step is to start doing what britton30 suggests (see his post in this thread), but not right now - it's late.
A problem with trying to install the .NET 4 updates manually, one by one, is that each attempt starts off by trying to set a restore point, which doesn't work. So the attempt waits about 20 minutes and then proceeds (and, so far, fails).

 

[Britton30]

Try the Reset Updates and Delete Update history first.

 

[rcdunbar]

Hi britton30, benjy206,

I ran the Windows Update batch file (full), and then sfc /scannow. I have also run the Windows Fixit tool. Nothing has improved. SFC reported Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations, although the CBS.log file showed 100s of instances of this line:

Info CBS Failed to internally open package. [HRESULT = 0x800f0805 - CBS_E_INVALID_PACKAGE]

I attempted to install the oldest of the ever-failing .NET 4 updates (NDP40-KB2468871-v2-x86.exe). The install failed, rolled back the install, and reported error code 0x80070643. The log file says it couldn't find
MsiGetCachedPatchPath or and a reference to a CLSID on H:\. Drive H is a data-only partition, so I don't know why Windows would be storing stuff there. Empty CLSIDs appear in H:\ every day. I had assumed that Acronis Backup was doing it, and from time to time I have deleted ones that were older than 3 months. So I suppose I could have unwittingly deleted something that Windows really needs to do updates. I can send you the log if that would help.

So that's where I am. At this point I'm inclined to uninstall .NET 4 and re-install it from scratch. Does that make sense?

Thanks for your responses.

 

[Britton30]

Before uninstalling .NET try this first. How to repair an existing installation of the.NET Framework

 

[Jacee]

Do you have Volume Shadow Copy and Windows Back up turned on and show 'started' in Services?

If you do, and the problem still persists, let's see if some temporary files need to be cleand out ...

Please download TFC by Old Timer TFC - Temp File Cleaner by OldTimer - Geeks to Go Forums and save it to your desktop.
Save any unsaved work. TFC will close ALL open programs including your browser!
Double-click on TFC.exe to run it. If you are using Vista/Windows 7 right-click on the file and choose Run As Administrator.
Click the Start button to begin the cleaning process and let it run uninterrupted to completion.
Important! If TFC prompts you to reboot, please do so immediately. If not prompted, manually reboot the machine anyway to ensure a complete clean.

Also, see this Error codes

 

[rcdunbar]

Hi britton30,

On your recommendation I ran the .NET repair as instructed in KB306160, using a new download for .NET 4. It ran without incident. Then, after rebooting, I installed the .NET 4 update KB2468871, which is one of the dozen that has long failed to install. This time it installed successfully - no rollback.

HOWEVER, the obligatory reboot failed! It gets past the login and starts to paint the desktop, then halts with a largely empty screen and hourglass cursor and some regular but brief hard drive activity. Went on like that all night. Powering down and rebooting this morning ended up the same way. I'm writing this message from my laptop.

I guess I'll have to try booting in safe mode to see what is causing this hangup. Do you have any insight as to what may have caused this major glytch?

Thanks

 

[Britton30]

I don't know why it would hang like that. See if you boot into http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/69585-safe-mode.html and uninstall the update and try to run Jacee's suggestion.

 

[UsernameIssues]

....At this point I'm inclined to uninstall .NET 4 and re-install it from scratch. Does that make sense?

Thanks for your responses.

Once you solve the reboot issue and once you finish working with Jacee on making sure that the computer is clean, I would suggest that you uninstall .NET 4 framework (and .NET 4 extended - if you have that) - then install .NET 4.5 in its place. Then install a couple of updates for .NET4.5.
Download .NET Framework 4.5 from Official Microsoft Download Center

Note: Uninstalling .NET 4 seems to remove any previously applied updates. If you want, you can manually uninstall each update first before uninstalling .NET 4.

You have great people helping you - I'll leave you in their capable hands so as to not take this thread in too many directions at once.

 

[rcdunbar]

Hi to all of you who have responded so thoughtfully,

Good News! The simple act of selecting Safe Mode with Internet Access caused the PC to reboot normally without incident - who knows why, and it doesn't matter. All of the .NET 4 KB upgrades that failed consistently for months have now installed successfully, as well as SP1 for Visual Studio Pro 2010. Operation appears to be at least as good as it was before.

However, all is not perfect: the KB update to IE10 failed; the three restore point buttons in the System Protection window are still inactive (grayed out); VS Pro 2010 fails to open, still with the message "Exception is thrown by the target of an invocation"; and some other application funnies that I didn't detail earlier still remain.

I now plan to do as jacee suggested, hoping that it doesn't undo any of the successes so far.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[Jacee]

This TFC application, just cleans all temp folders ... but it's an excellent one to keep!