Hotfixes

[seekermeister]

I've been going through the list of available hotfixes on this forum, hoping to find one or more that might relates to some issues that I'm trying to solve, but after reading the articles on them, I'm usually left confused after reading all of the ifs, ands, buts and warnings, even though at least part of the things that it describes are applicable to the situation.

Every hotfix is prefaced with the warning that it should only be used in the situation described, and I'm wondering what happens if I misinterpret and install the wrong one? How much of a gamble is involved?

 

[Shootist]

You are not the only one that is left dazed and confused after TRYING to read the articles.

Somehow someway the Auto Update feature got turned on on my system and I woke the other day to find my system had rebooted and I had 18 new updates.

You don't know how POed I am.
I'm just about ready to reimage my drive to about 3 days before the Auto Updates.
They have also used about 1.5GB of space with the shadow copy and backup of the update and the files they updated.

 

[sygnus21]

I've been going through the list of available hotfixes on this forum, hoping to find one or more that might relates to some issues that I'm trying to solve, but after reading the articles on them, I'm usually left confused after reading all of the ifs, ands, buts and warnings, even though at least part of the things that it describes are applicable to the situation.

Every hotfix is prefaced with the warning that it should only be used in the situation described, and I'm wondering what happens if I misinterpret and install the wrong one? How much of a gamble is involved?

You could create a restore point then install the update. BTW that warning is just standard practice as you've noted. Sort of like overclocking your computer is dangerous.

Anyway create a restore point try the update and if it works good, if not revert back to before you created the restore point.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/697-system-restore-point-create.html

Good luck.

 

[Bill2]

I've been going through the list of available hotfixes on this forum, hoping to find one or more that might relates to some issues that I'm trying to solve, but after reading the articles on them, I'm usually left confused after reading all of the ifs, ands, buts and warnings, even though at least part of the things that it describes are applicable to the situation.

Every hotfix is prefaced with the warning that it should only be used in the situation described, and I'm wondering what happens if I misinterpret and install the wrong one? How much of a gamble is involved?

What issues are you trying to solve? Are they related to updates? And have automatic updates caused you problems?

 

[seekermeister]

No, as far as I know, updates are not the cause of any of my problems. I have been trying to both fix boot time problems that have continued to grow worse, and system freezes that have been making me do forced restarts. I don't know that any of the hotfixes would address the crashes, but two or three that I have found may possibly help with reboot time. However, as I said previously, the hotfix descriptions are not totally correlating with my problems, but enough so, that I believe that they are close.

An example is this hotfix:

An update that improves the startup performance of Windows 7 and of Windows Server 2008 R2 is available

Unfortunately, it is designed for SP1. which I have not, nor intend to install. Yet, I feel pretty sure that part of my problem is exactly what is described. So far, I have found nothing for the system freezes, but it seems that they are some how related to certain graphical programs, like some games, and video functions. I have done a number of things to try to rectify this but the search for the cure is an ongoing task.

 

[sygnus21]

Why don't you want SP1??? It's done no harm to mine or lot's of other's systems.

Just curious?

 

[Stormkitty]

Also it's not designed for SP1. Read the Prerequisites section of the Hotfix.

To apply this hotfix, you must be running one of the following operating systems:

Windows 7
Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1)

 

[Shootist]

Also it's not designed for SP1. Read the Prerequisites section of the Hotfix.

To apply this hotfix, you must be running one of the following operating systems:

Windows 7
Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1)

What?
Right there is says 7 SP1.

 

[sygnus21]

Actually it reads either or.......

Prerequisites

To apply this hotfix, you must be running one of the following operating systems:

• Windows 7
• Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1)

In other words one of the 4 available OS options. Note that there IS an option to run the hotfix without SP1 installed

Source: An update that improves the startup performance of Windows 7 and of Windows Server 2008 R2 is available

 

[seekermeister]

Thanks, I had paid more attention to the way that it was listed on the download page, where it was not so explicit. That one is a go.

 

[sygnus21]

Thanks, I had paid more attention to the way that it was listed on the download page, where it was not so explicit. That one is a go.

I'm sorry you lost me. Does that mean you're going to give it a go.

If you do, don't forget to to a system restore first. Although some hotfixes/updates do it automatically you just want to be sure it done.

 

[Phone Man]

Hot Fixes are used to fix problems that a limited number of people are having but not enough to warrant pushing out an update to everyone. However all the Hot Fixes are included in the next SP. SP1 had over 600 Hot Fixes included. So I would recommend SP1 be installed to catch up on all the Hot Fixes that MS has issued.

Jim

 

[sygnus21]

Agree, but he stated he didn't want to install SP1

Unfortunately, it is designed for SP1. which I have not, nor intend to install.

 

[seekermeister]

Thanks, I had paid more attention to the way that it was listed on the download page, where it was not so explicit. That one is a go.

I'm sorry you lost me. Does that mean you're going to give it a go.

If you do, don't forget to to a system restore first. Although some hotfixes/updates do it automatically you just want to be sure it done.

Yes, I just applied that hotfix. I think that it has helped, but it is not absolutely clear, because boot time varies so much on my machine. After 3 reboots, it appears that it is averaging ~ 116 seconds now, which still leaves a lot of room for improvement.

Going through the boot logs in the Event Viewer is not terribly helpful, because it only logs 4 or less items effecting boot time on each boot, and the total time of all of them is not even close to the amount of lag involved. Soluto wasn't very helpful either, but it did provide some extra information that the Event Viewer didn't.

Something that I don't understand is that both monitors sometimes list a lag caused by wmpnetwork, but when I used Soluto to delay that, it still popped up on boot time. I then disabled it in services, and yet it still runs on boot.

This is not the major delay in booting, but since tweaking this is a matter of whittling a few seconds at a time, I would like to eliminate it altogether. How can that be done, when disabling it's service doesn't?

 

[Stormkitty]

Have you tried running Microsoft's Boot tracer that's in the Windows SDK? I found out the reason behind my glacial boot time was one of the services included in recent Catalyst drivers and disabling it cut boot times in half.

 

[seekermeister]

I have Windows SDK 7.0 installed, and going through it's Start Menu directory, I didn't find anything called Boot Tracer...where would I find it?

 

[sygnus21]

With the issues you're having I really don't see what the harm is in installing SP1. Honestly I don't see the system getting worse and I can say for myself that I haven't lost any performance or had any issues when I installed SP1.

At any rate its obviously your decision, I just thought i'd throw that out there.

Other then that have you looked into the motherboard or chipset drivers?

 

[seekermeister]

I have the latest chipset drivers installed, but that isn't saying much, because Asus hasn't updated them in quite a while, since my mb is an old S939. Since boot time has always been an issue, it is possible that the drivers are part of the issue, but I doubt that they are causing the more recent problems with increases in time.

If a driver is the root of the problem, I would tend to suspect the Nvidia driver, because of the crashing aspect seemingly being related to graphical/video display instances. However, I am updated to the latest driver, and the problem is the same as it was with the previous one. However, I did have a problem with the update, because Windows insisted on installing the driver via Windows Update, and when I attempted to reinstall it with the driver that I downloaded from Nvidia, the installation failed.

When I used Driver Sweeper, and then booted into Safe Mode, so that Windows Update wasn't accessible, it then automatically scanned for the driver and installed it, regardless of what I tried to stop it, but it does show that the latest driver is installed, but it must still be the one from Windows Update, since my driver installation failed. Then again, I'm not sure that is entirely true, because the portion that failed was Physx, but it appeared that the rest of the driver may have installed...I don't know.

 

[sygnus21]

I'm sorry to say but you're having some weird software issue there. First off there's no way WU should be "forcing" a video card driver (or any driver for that matter) on you. Then you have performance issues. I don' know, something strange is going on - what? I don't know.

You might consider a fresh install.

 

[Bill2]

Heres how to completely get rid of wmpnetwk.

What exactly is wmpnetwk.exe And is it Working? « Kozar Cool Blog

Also, if you dont share media via wmp, disable media sharing.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...sing-windows-media-player-enable-disable.html