SD73

Absolutely! I have that in my Start Up folder. If I have kids, boy or a girl, Heinoganda is going to be the name!

YES! Heinoganda is a very modest man. He didn't want me to make a big fuss, but it was absolutely his roll-up package that did the trick! None the the individual updates would load whether they were downloaded individually, through the Install Shield, or the Windows Update website. After the install of his roll-up package (just the normal way you'd run it, not in recovery) things went back to as they should and we tested individual updates and indeed they began working again too. Then Heinoganda went the extra step and gave me roll-ups of the .Net updates just to make sure I was in top form. As near as I can figure, the cause was me installing this round of updates from a USB stick that died and corrupted something along the way. I did tons of troubleshooting the problem with zero results until Heinoganda offered his help. This is a fantastic site, and guys like Heinoganda really are a credit to this community! Thanks again Heinoganda and everyone who offered suggestions along the way!

What a forum and what a talented bunch of members! I'm back in business!

PM sent!

I appreciate all the input guys! heinoganda, I think you may be onto something. The last thing I remembered happening was trying to load the updates from a USB stick I copied them too. At some point the stick died and shortly after I noticed the issue happening. It gave me the "The System Cannot Find the File Specified." That's when I tried forcing it from the browser and then waiting for the yellow shield. I did run some utilities to clean up the disk like CClean and XP's tools, but obviously that didn't do it. Any idea where these sort of files may be hidden? Dave, I actually tried that too. Again, I appreciate the idea. And I'm open to any and all at this point.

My System Restore did not work. Every date I tried to restore would not go through. I remember someone in this thread had good luck with creating a fresh restore point and restoring to that, but unfortunately that did not help either. I'm running out of ideas....

Thanks for the tips anyway! I'm getting desperate. LOL. The registering did not help. I do have the RunOnce in my registry, but there are no Values. Should it just be blank? I'm getting ready to press my luck and fire off that System Restore.

Thanks! I will give this a try right now, then I'm considering a System Restore to a couple of months ago.

That had occurred to me too. However I did run SuperAntiSpyWare, Malwarebytes, and MalwareBytes Root Kit. All came up perfectly clean. All other EXE's run fine with no problems either. I just ran SFC.EXE /Scannow to see if I had any other sort of corruption and also Disk Clean Up. This is a real head scratchier for me.

Thank you for your suggestions, Bersaglio. I have tried disabling my antivirus, and I did try loading the patches directly from the downloads and that did not work either. When I tried double clicking the downloaded files I got the below message shortly after it began expanding the file. "The System Cannot Find the File Specified" I've found version 6.2.0029.0 of Updater. Does anyone know if that will work with our XP systems?

Hey guys, I'm still struggling with this round of updates. Most are failing to install no matter how many tricks I try to get them to go. I'd like to reinstall Windows Update. Can anyone point to to a good download of the latest Windows Update I can use?

Gentlemen, I'm not having much luck installing these downloads. These two installed just fine. http://download.windowsupdate.com/d/csa/csa/secu/2017/04/NDP20SP2-KB4014580-x86_00BC481A903B582272CAE81E76334295A1209F73.exe http://download.windowsupdate.com/d/csa/csa/secu/2017/04/NDP40-KB4014570-x86_DA912E6659C218306C1850642966AE13AC114051.exe The remaining ones gave me an error stating "The System Cannot Find the File Specified" each time I double clicked the file to install. That was for each of the other dozen or so files. I tried downloading them directly from the XP PC, and also from my laptop to a USB stick to try it from a different source. The problem persists with my antivirus software disabled. Any thoughts and recommendations would be appreciated!

I've been using the free edition of Bitdefender since XP lost support. It seems to run very light and trouble free for those wanting to check out something different. I have had a few instances where I needed to empty my SoftwareDistribution directory because some patches kept wanting to reinstall, but I am not sure if it had anything to do with Bitdefender as I was having that issue on occasion prior to the move.

I got the 11 updates. I had one issued with KB4011981. It kept wanting to reinstall after each reboot. I had to clear my SoftwareDistribution directory as I had to in the past with this same recurring install issue. Other than that everything seems fine.

My 9 updates went smooth. Rebooted and it did not ask prompt for any redos. I'm a happy camper this month.

Thanks for the tip, Dave! I checked the website and it gave me an error saying "The Website Encountered a Problem and Could Not Display the Page I am trying to Review." The rest of the Microsfost Update page displays fine. I just ASSumed it was because we're running the POS stuff. Looking at the Event Log was kind of confusing so I gave up on that pretty quick. I'll just leave it as a mis-count until the next go around when I count using both my fingers AND my toes! Thanks again!

I THOUGHT I counted eleven, but I may have miscounted. Dave is probably right. Is there a way to retroactively see what was just installed?

Got my yellow shield. Got 11 updates. Installed all without a problem. Rebooted and no surprises. That's about the cleanest update I've had yet.

Thanks Dencorso, the others I've hidden because they keep looping and reinstalling. I am not sure if they've actually installed or something blocks them from being installed. I have tried loading them manually, and they keep popping back in for reinstallation so I've hidden them. Would you know if any of those are especially dangerous to not have installed?

Hi guys, Dencorso brought up Blocked Updates. I want to run the ones I have blocked by you guys in the brain trust. Can you let me know if these ones seem reasonable to have blocked? Most of these are ones that persistently come up for installation after each reboot.

I installed them all. No issues as of yet.

My updates ran pretty well too. I think I counted about the same number S.N. posted above. However, I have noticed for the last few updates that KB1393998 & KB2862330 like to reinstall themselves even though they've been previously installed. Has anyone else encountered that with these two? Any suggestions for resolving it? I have tried manually installing them and running them in safe mode, but they prompt each time new updates are discovered.

I had 12 updates. A few failed. I think they were Office related. And a few looped, but eventually that stopped. Overall no significant issues. Worth noting is I run Bitdefender. After my last update on a lark I ran a Malwarebytes and a SuperAntivirus scan and both found a few minor PUPs. I really don't surf at all on that machine so either they got their on their own or they've been sitting there a long time. You guys may want to try a few extra scans on your machines to be sure they're staying as clean as they should be. I'm still running HMuellers original registry hacks. Do I need to update anything as we go forward? Thanks!

Thanks FranceBB, no ill effects after doing that and plenty of updates showed up when I manually ran Windows Update!

Well I'm going to raise my hand for help now. My XP SP3 machine (you can see my sig for more specifics) only got the install shield for 5 updates: They were KBs: 3114900 3092601 * 3134146 * 2862330 890830 After rebooting I kept getting prompted to reinstall the KB's with the " * " besides it so I went through the clearing of the SoftwareDistribution directory and that seems to have cleared that up. I have not been prompted for any additional updates. Can I please get a recommendation for my installation? I've only made the original registry changes per hmuellers 541 post. Thanks!