Dave-H

Did you have @heinoganda's version of KB4134651 installed from last month, which kept the old oleaut32.dll instead of the buggy replacement? It doesn't look as if that file was replaced this month, but maybe SFC is suddenly not liking it, although it seems OK here.

I am a bit confused here! I have KB4019276 installed (from February's updates) but not KB4316682. Does today's update KB4230450 actually supersede it? I have added the registry data to reveal the TLS 1.1 and 1.2 entries in the IE advanced settings options, and they were both already ticked, so presumably they were already activated, the registry keys just add them to the interface so you can turn them off if you want to.

While I was aware of the expression, I must say that I didn't know that the original "Larry" was a boxer. He was actually an Australian called Larry Foley apparently, and the phase originated there rather than in the UK. He boxed in the late 1800s, and apparently never lost a fight!

Good to hear!

Well I've fixed mine too! All I had to do in fact was to disable and re-enable the "Enable Java content for browser and Web Start applications" option in the Java Control Panel Security tab, and it all came good. The IE option in the Java Control Panel Advanced tab is now checked and staying checked. The Mozilla one still isn't staying checked, but it was always like that before, and it works in Firefox anyway even without it checked. What the problem actually was I have no idea, but I guess something just needed resetting. It's working fine in IE8 now! Thanks everyone. Cheers, Dave.

I can understand why it's not working on https sites, you have worked around that by adding the HTTPSProxy. What I don't understand is why it's not now working on http Java test sites either, which I'm sure it used to on at least some of them. Also why the setting in the Java Control Panel isn't "sticking". IIRC the "Mozilla Family" one never did stick, although Java still worked in Firefox and Opera, but the IE one certainly did.

Something is strange here. My understanding is that you can't test Java in IE8 on any https sites as most don't now work in IE8 anyway, and that's been the case for quite some time. However I now can't find any Java test pages that work, which I'm sure I did some months ago when I last tried. I was assuming that was because of the latest versions of Java which had lost compatibility with IE8. The sites that I can load either say that Java isn't installed/enabled or just produce white boxes with red crosses in the top left corner where the applets should be. The add-ons are present and enabled in IE8, but the Java Control Panel shows both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla family unchecked, and if I check them they've reverted to unchecked when I look again. Strange, as Java is working fine in Firefox! Obviously this is not really a problem, but I don't like things not working when I don't know why! Anything else I can check? It is a manual install of Java 8 Update 162, and everything else about the installation seems to be fine.

Java hasn't actually worked in IE8 for a very long time indeed in my experience. Firefox 52ESR is the only browser I have where the plugin still does work on any of the test sites.

I queried that as well here. The links in that thread have now been fixed. You asked whether you need to have Java, and the answer now is probably actually no. Java-based programs need it to run of course, but they often include their own bundled version anyway. There are still websites that use it for things like animations, as an alternative to Flash, but they are getting very few and far between now.

Thanks, that's fine now. I did wonder about replacing javacpl.cpl with the newer version in \system32. Does that matter?

@sdfox7 Your link doesn't work as it stands, as it bypasses the license acceptance procedure. You have to go here first to get the file as far as I can see - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jre8-downloads-2133155.html

I assume you meant "FF ESR 52.6.0" not "FF ESR 56.6.0" Den. I only ask because you said 56.6.0 in a previous post too!

Known problem I'm afraid. See here, and here, and the subsequent posts. It has been reported to Oracle, but whether they will do anything to fix it as they don't officially support XP any more, I don't know.

Indeed so!

Gosh, and I thought I had complex systems! It will be a sad day when Firefox 52ESR has to be abandoned, because it still supports so many legacy things.

Why are you using it on Windows 7 rather than a later version as a matter of interest Den? I'm using Firefox 56 on Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. I won't go any higher as I would lose too many of the extensions I like. Is it because you use NPAPI plug-ins?

Working fine here on two systems.

Thank you so much Stephen, that's great! I wasn't aware that there was an update 152, it was never offered by the updater, perhaps it was considered to be too minor an update on 151. I downloaded your file, and will probably now uninstall 151 and install 152 from scratch, and hope we get a working updater for 161 at some point.

Yes, that's exactly the Search Companion, although I don't use the dog (Rover IIRC!) I've now determined that this problem does not seem to happen in Safe Mode. The XP Companion is always there. Whether this means that it's nothing to do with the new kernel system files I don't know. Is anyone else, with Windows (Desktop) Search 4.0 installed and activated. seeing this?

Thanks! I'm not subscribed to that thread, so I hadn't seen that. It does look like a compatibility problem of some sort. The install log says - ERROR: Exception with message 'Dll.cpp(48) at Dll::getFunction(): GetProcAddress(D:\WIN-NT\system32\user32, SetProcessDPIAware) failed. System error [127](system error 127 (The specified procedure could not be found))' caught Also, rather less helpfully, I can see - ERROR: Exception with message '' caught I wasn't aware of this happening before, but a post on the other thread says that a modified installer was produced before by blackwingcat (presumably mainly for Windows 2000) so I hope that can be done again this time, if it's only the installer that has a problem and not the Java system itself. I was hoping to unpack the installer and get at the MSI file, but no luck. Fortunately I still had the offline installer for version 8 Update 151, so I've just put that back for the moment.

Something very strange has happened to the Search Companion on both my XP machines. If I select Start>Search>For Files or Folders the XP Search Companion comes up as usual, but only once. If I close it and select it again it's reverted to the old-style Windows 2000 looking Search Companion. Once that's happened I can only get the XP one back again by logging off and on again, but again it then only works once. As I said, this is happening on both my XP installations, one of which has only KB4056615 and KB4056941 installed, and the other of which has the Office and .NET updates as well. I do have Windows Search 4.0 installed on both machines. I've checked all the relevant registry settings and they are all fine. I of course had a nasty feeling this was a consequence of installing KB4056615! I uninstalled the updates, but the problem didn't go away. Is this happening for anyone else?

Has anyone managed to get Java 8 Update 161 to install from the installers on XP? I've never had any problems before, but now the offline and online installers just run and then close, without apparently doing anything. There's no error messages, and nothing in the system logs about it. Has XP finally been blocked or is this perhaps to do with the latest MS Windows Updates (I hope not!)?

OK, I've tried formatting the USB stick as NTFS, and I'm now also getting the error message if I try to copy a file to it. Frankly I don't think I'm going to lose any sleep over this as long as that's the only problem caused by the NTFS.SYS update. I can't see that I would ever need the stick formatted to anything other than FAT32, which seems to work fine.

The only options I'm being offered to format my USB stick are FAT32 or exFAT. I don't see any reason to format it to NTFS, which I assume I could perhaps do with Windows 10? The only reason to do that as far as I can see would be if I needed to put a file on it that was bigger than 4GB, and I can't see that ever happening!

I've tested with a FAT32 formatted 16GB USB stick on my main machine, copying and pasting files to and from it and deleting files from it, and no apparent problems. This is the machine where the OS is running on a FAT32 drive however. I will try with my other machine where the OS is running on an NTFS drive later.