DaveU
Tue May 13 22:27:00 PDT 2008
thanks Robert. Reply as below:
(1) "I've followed all four methods shown on the MS site."
It may help if you clarify what URL you were looking at?
" support.microsoft.com/kb/950718 "
You're right Robert - there are five methods there. I should have confessed
that I chickened out of trying #5!
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(2) "I first tried to download using the Express Recommended route. I've
tried again and have sat and watched every stage. I now know that the
download succeeded!"
How do you know that? E.g., which diagnostic did you look at?
There was a message at the end saying 'downloaded succeeded'. I've just
checked "Review your update history" on the Update page. My first attempt was
cancelled, the second one failed (0x80072EE2) but the last three succeeded.
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(3) But when having restarted, as prompted, I have again got the screen " We
apologise for the inconvenience but Windows did not start successfully . .
due to a recent hardware or software download."
This looks like a "something's wrong that we didn't expect to happen" type
of message. You probably need to refine that symptom and at least find out
what that "something" is.
I took the shortest route, not being PC-literate and posted here. Is there
anything else I can do?
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(4) "I have again had to go into Safe Mode and then use System Restore. It
took 2
1/2 hours to restore."
Instead what you could do is look at the rest of the diagnostics that the
install creates (e.g. search your drives for files which were changed that
day, then sort them by Date Modified and then scroll to the minute that the
update attempt was started.) If necessary you can supplement the clues you
get from those logs by running ProcMon to see what registry and file
accesses occurred just before each log message was written.
Thanks. I'll try that if I have to.
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Update: I tried Robear's link
(
http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-gb&prid=11273&gprid=522131).
I was very impressed with it. I noted on my email to them what had happened,
gave them authority to access my PC, and hit 'send'.
Up came a window "loading" - it was still there over two hours later. My
daughter need the PC for college work so I abandoned it. I'll try the link
again now, without access to files and ask them if it should take that long.
If it should, then that's fine by me. I'll let you know what happens.
In closing may I thank Leonard, Robear and Robert for spending so much of
their time to help me. It's much appreciated. Can I ask another favour of
Robear, as an MS MVP? That such updates from the Update site show a warning
that users must first look at the KB articles to do their preparaatory work.
Thanks.