Warning re. recent windows hotfix 890589

[bgorrell]

Anyone who has automatic updates enabled in XP may want to take extra precautions before installing Hotfix 890589 dated April 12.

I usually let all these security hotfixes self-install. This one was installed for about a week untill I started having problems. I had rebooted for the first time since the hotfix because I added a wireless router. At first things seemed okay, but Sage did not load and gave me a Java error. I removed and re-installed Java and tried another reboot. This time, XP would not load past the welcome screen and started an endless reboot loop. Everytime it got to the welcome screen it would reboot again. I defaulted everything in BIOS settings and rebooted in Safe mode and removed Java. Still, same reboot cycle problem. I started researching it on google from another computer and found out how to turn off reboots on errors. I found it was rebooting due to a BSOD. I then researched the numbers from the BSOD and found that Microsoft released a hotfix in mid-April that was causing this behavior for many people. Many had given up and re-installed windows from scratch. Most solutions said to reboot off the CD and provided instructions for removing the service pack from the recovery console. Everyone seems to be reporting that removing this hotfix is restoring Windows to working status for them.

I tried removing the hotfix from add/remove programs while in safe mode. It worked, sort of. I could now get into windows, but it had reset all of my hardware and driver configuration data and I had to re-install them all. This included AGP, IDE, LAN, video, sound, and USB drivers, etc. Luckily, I had them all handily available in a directory on my drive.

Thankfully, I'm now back to normal and haven't lost anything. All of this took two complete evenings to troubleshoot and restore. I have told Automatic Updates to ignore this Hotfix. I've read that Microsoft has acknowledged the problems, but has not recalled the hotfix or anything yet. I would strongly suggest either holding off on this update, or at least being sure you have a real good backup or ghost image before installing it. I did not and I ended up wasting two days and missed a bunch of recordings to boot.

BTW, I'm running:
Pentium 4 1.6GHz
768MB RAM
SiS Chipset Motherboard w/IDE/RAID/AGP/USB
ATI Radeon 8500
Windows XP w/SP1

[MTuckman]

I actually have 2 PC's currently down with the exact same problem. And it seemed to happen around the middle of April.

Are you sure about the hotfix number? I did a search through all the normal search engines and came up with nothing.

I am just REALLY glad that my HTPC runs on Windows Server 2003!!! Losing that PC would hurt.

EDIT: Could it be 890859? That was released on April 12th and I am just reading up on it now. And it could effect Win2003, except that I have automatic updates turned off.

[philhu]

Microsoft hotfix/updates are a virus in itself. It loads on almost all computers in this world, and when it has a problem, can crash ALL OF THEM!

Who let a company like MS do this? They could crash every system on the planet in a whim! What a mistake!

Think how many hours people spend ficing MS problems.....And if you turn off their updates, they drop your support contract as 'out of rev'

Phil

[bgorrell]

Originally Posted by MTuckman

I actually have 2 PC's currently down with the exact same problem. And it seemed to happen around the middle of April.

Are you sure about the hotfix number? I did a search through all the normal search engines and came up with nothing.

I am just REALLY glad that my HTPC runs on Windows Server 2003!!! Losing that PC would hurt.

EDIT: Could it be 890859? That was released on April 12th and I am just reading up on it now. And it could effect Win2003, except that I have automatic updates turned off.

You're right, it is 890859. There is a thread on Google that has many examples of others having the same problem with this update:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...5f49455a8de9fd