11 Nov 2015 Windows Critical Update KB3097877 Crashes Windows Sidebar

jalind · 11 Nov 2015

Just went through the second Tuesday update cycle and when all five computers restarted, sidebar.exe crashed during boot up, and kept crashing on repeated restarts. Dropping back to the restore point just prior to the update cycle restored proper Windows Sidebar operation. As there were over two dozen critical updates between Windows and MS Office, it took some work to isolate which update broke the Windows Sidebar. I've been able to replicate installing KB3097877 crashing sidebar.exe and uninstalling it restores proper sidebar function, on two laptops and two desktops, all with Windows 7 Pro or Windows 7 Ultimate /x64 . . . although I don't believe the Win7 variant makes any difference.

Even if auto updates are turned off, Windows insists on trying to install KB3097877 during Shutdown (i.e. when you turn off the computer). The only way to prevent it from being reinstalled (and breaking the sidebar again) is to select and hide this update in Windows Update.

John

OvenMaster · 11 Nov 2015

I see a lot of people having trouble with this update... but for some reason it's unchecked for me. Odd.

compu · 12 Nov 2015

Weird yes, on my machine I could not even see the update in the list for those had been installed other than just the initial list showing the update history but what you can do is to uninstall the update in command line easily.
Just open a command line prompt and run this command:
wusa /uninstall /kb:3097877 /quiet /forcerestart
and after few seconds the computer will reboot without warning and sidebar will show back with no errors.

Lady Fitzgerald · 12 Nov 2015

MSpy has been warning against using Gadgets for quite some time because a bad one from a source other than MSpy may allow malware in so it's possible the maroons deliberately disable Gadgets with this update. Or it could just be yet another in a long string of faulty updates that MSpy will have to pull and fix. Of course, it could possible that MSpy is deliberately trying to sabotage Win 7 to get people to switch over to the abomination better known as Win 10. Right now may money is on the faulty update theory. In any case, I've blocked it and tentatively added it to my Specialized High Intensity Training List.

UsernameIssues · 12 Nov 2015

OvenMaster said:

I see a lot of people having trouble with this update... but for some reason it's unchecked for me. Odd.

Maybe MS knew that they were hours away from publishing the second version of that KB.
KB3097877 re-issued?

Lady Fitzgerald · 12 Nov 2015

Has anyone determined if the new update still crashes Gadgets?

DougCuk · 12 Nov 2015

Looks like the re-issued version must be quite a general fix - not just for Outlook or Sidebar issues
As it also fixed a lockup problem caused by KB3097877 with the Tweaking.com Registry Backup application
This was suffering a freeze every time you tried to click X to close the program
Ran Windows Update and installed the fixed version - problem solved - all back to normal

Lady Fitzgerald · 12 Nov 2015

DougCuk said:

Looks like the re-issued version must be quite a general fix - not just for Outlook or Sidebar issues
As it also fixed a lockup problem caused by KB3097877 with the Tweaking.com Registry Backup application
This was suffering a freeze every time you tried to click X to close the program
Ran Windows Update and installed the fixed version - problem solved - all back to normal

Thank you for the update! I'm going to continue to wait until Saturday to download and install the updates (my normal practice). I normally will make an image of my OS first, then I download and install the updates. This time around, I'm going to tweak my procedure a bit; I'll make the image, download and install all the updates, except for KB2097877, make another image, then download and install KB2097877.

OvenMaster · 12 Nov 2015

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Of course, it could possible that MSpy is deliberately trying to sabotage Win 7 to get people to switch over to the abomination better known as Win 10. Right now may money is on the faulty update theory. In any case, I've blocked it and tentatively added it to my Specialized High Intensity Training List.

1. Deliberate sabotage would not surprise me in the least.
2. I just checked WU again and the update shows up. I'll wait.
3. Heh heh heh...gotta remember that one.

Lady Fitzgerald · 14 Nov 2015

Lady Fitzgerald said:

DougCuk said:

Looks like the re-issued version must be quite a general fix - not just for Outlook or Sidebar issues
As it also fixed a lockup problem caused by KB3097877 with the Tweaking.com Registry Backup application
This was suffering a freeze every time you tried to click X to close the program
Ran Windows Update and installed the fixed version - problem solved - all back to normal

Thank you for the update! I'm going to continue to wait until Saturday to download and install the updates (my normal practice). I normally will make an image of my OS first, then I download and install the updates. This time around, I'm going to tweak my procedure a bit; I'll make the image, download and install all the updates, except for KB2097877, make another image, then download and install KB2097877.

UPDATE: I made my image and hid KB2097877 just before downloading and running the updates. It stalled at 80% downloaded on one of the NetFrame updates and, after waiting an hour on it, I got P.O.ed and hit the reset button, then restored the image I had just made.

I hid KB2097877 again, unchecked the three Netframe updates, then tried again. This time, everything went well, after rebooting, I made another image, then unhid KB2097877, ran it, and rebooted. My gadgets still worked fine. I don't know about Realtch since I use a sound card which was also still working.

I made still another image and ran the Netframe updates one at a time. All three ran just fine; only the third one needed a reboot. After rebooting, everything seemed to be doing fine until I noticed my memory leak problem was suddenly getting worse. It went from 12% to 30% in about an hour! Yikes! I did another reboot and everything seems to be as stable as it was for now.

Days like the ones I've been having every day for the last couple weeks are going to drive me to drink!