Dave-H

Strange, I updated to Firefox 52.2 ESR today, and YouTube is still working fine for me. Mixcloud.com seems to be fine as well, but I don't think I can test soundcloud.com as I'm not a member.

Oops, sorry I had a brainstorm there! It's actually Opera 12.02 I'm running on 98SE, not 12.18. Move on everyone, nothing to see here.............

What's wrong with Opera 12.18, it works fine for me on 98SE, with a few quirks?!

Well that verson does not work for me. As expected, the KB890830 version just says it's not a valid Win32 application if I try to run it on XP.

IIRC all versions of MRT.exe after version 5.39.12900.0 just throw an error message if you try to run them on XP. I had no entry for KB982316 originally in my registry either, but having installed it , I now do. Looking at previous posts, I don't think it's a fix that's relevant except in particular circumstances, but I'm assuming there's no harm in having it installed anyway.

Well I'm certainly not going to be the first to try it! Someone with a non-critical installation that can be used for testing and doesn't matter if it gets hosed I hope will try it and report back.

Just as a matter of interest for those who may not know about it, there is a utility available here which will download from Windows Update or Microsoft Update for you, including saving the files for use offline. It's mainly useful in Windows 10, where it is otherwise impossible to see optional updates for some stupid reason, but it works in all Windows versions from 2000 onwards. It does replace the IE8 interface, but unfortunately still uses the normal update mechanism, so won't get around the extremely slow scanning problem! There are x86 and x64 versions in the package, but no documentation. It's pretty obvious how to use it though, and there is more information here.

It's all SSDs except for the archive drive, which is a 1TB conventional drive. 1TB SSDs are still a bit expensive, although I do now have one in my netbook! I'm still not completely certain I want to trust my archive to an SSD either, although it is regularly backed up of course (to another conventional drive.)

I'm on Version 1703 OS build 15063.296.

I think the only option now is to forget about any IE8 embedded Windows Update links, as they no longer work. They re-direct to the Windows Update FAQ page on the Microsoft support site, which no longer works at all in IE8. The address which now redirects doesn't seem to be stored in the registry, it's almost certainly hard coded. Just make a favourite or internet shortcut pointing to one of the addresses that heinoganda gave earlier.

Well it's fixed, but I have no idea why! I did some more investigating with the guys on Windows 10 Forums and tried the registry purge detailed here. They seemed convinced that there was still some policy in place somewhere that was causing it, and deleting those keys should have removed any traces of it. This apparently did nothing at the time, but the next day I started looking again to see if there were any other options, and although the message was definitely still there when I booted up, when I looked again later, it had gone! I have absolutely no idea why, it would be an enormous coincidence if it spontaneously fixed itself while I was investigating it, but I can't think of any reason why it would disappear, other than the extremely unlikely scenario that the registry changes I made took a while to have an effect! All OK now anyway, I hope the message doesn't come back just as suddenly!

Isn't that the address to get the Windows Update ActiveX components, not the actual Windows updates? I don't think there's any way of correcting the actual Windows Update site address, where the embedded link in IE8 is no longer working.

Should there be something in that last post? It looks blank.

Interesting, I guess the reports i saw showing it were actually about preview versions, and it never made it to the final version? That would certainly explain why it isn't there! So, how do you enable and disable driver updates through Windows Update on version 1703 of Windows 10? The option under System Properties>Advanced Settings>Hardware>Device installation Settings is still missing the option that it used to have to disable driver updates if you selected "no" there. Surely you don't have to do it now with Group Policy!

Thanks. I found that setting, which says it's been replaced in Windows 10 by the "Specify Driver Source Search Order" policy. None of these policies is configured on my system, in fact as I said earlier, the whole Group Policy system is disabled on my system as I have no use for it. I tried enabling it and toggling those settings, but nothing made any difference. Are you saying that the "include drivers" option is missing on your Windows Update Advanced Settings page too? Do you have any of those group policies enabled, and if so does changing things bring the option back? I would be very interested to hear from others as to whether they have that option present or not if they have the Creators Update.

Interesting that bulletin still lists Vista as a supported OS. I thought support for that ended a month ago! Vista users should still have had the patch back in March though. Are there any instances of machines on current fully patched operating systems being affected by the exploit? I'd be surprised if Windows 10 was affected, because as we all know, you can't avoid getting patched on that, unless you make a deliberate decision to prevent it! Let's hope that the next evolution of the malware is blocked before it has a chance to strike.

Another update on this. I think what may be "hidden" on my windows update pages is the option on the Advanced Settings page to "include driver updates when I update windows". That option was added in the Creators Update I believe, but it isn't there on my installation. I've tried searching for possible causes of its absence, but I've completely drawn a blank. I assume that it should be there, so anyone got any ideas why it isn't?

That's good to see, although a saying about horses and stable doors springs to mind! Hopefully at least it will prevent any re-occurrence, at least in the short term.

I would imagine that this problem will go away soon, as surely updates for the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack will end sometime this year, as it's ten years old. That's usually the nominal cut-off point for support.

Well I finally managed to update both of my XP installations. My main machine scanned on Microsoft Update for several hours, but then eventually did all the updates correctly. The yellow shield did show in the system tray when the updates appeared, but it hadn't until then. The first attempt on my netbook scanned for 16 hours before finally showing the list. The yellow shield never appeared. When I went to install the updates, it went to "preparing for download", but never apparently went any further, even after being left for an hour. I tried to cancel it, and it said it was cancelling, but then just apparently hung on that, so I eventually just rebooted. On the second attempt it was 25 hours before the list appeared! The yellow shield did appear this time, about a third of the way through. When I went to install again, it said the updates were already downloaded, so it looks as if they did download the first time, it just didn't show it. They all installed fine, eventually, although the .NET 4.0 and .NET 2.0 updates each took a very long time, as .NET updates always seem to As there doesn't seem to be any evidence that automatic updates are installing any more quickly that those scanned for on the update site, how genuine in-use WEPOS machines are managing to update themselves heaven only knows! I guess most must be on 24/7 so it doesn't matter if it takes literally days to do in the background! Microsoft must surely be aware of this, legitimate WEPOS users trying to manually update machines must surely have reported it. They don't seem to be exactly rushing to do anything about it though, even though the system is supported for another two years!

The link under the Tools menu is redirecting to a Microsoft Support FAQ page, and MS Support pages now don't work at all in IE8. Unfortunately its URL is not in the registry either, it seems to be hard coded into a DLL somewhere so cannot be made to work. Of course if it's in one of the IE8 DLLs that are updated most months on Patch Tuesday in the cumulative updates for IE8, perhaps it will be fixed very soon!

That's just a normal favourite surely? The item I was talking about is the "Windows Update" item in the drop-down when you select "Tools" on IE8's toolbar. As far as I know, that cannot be changed to point anywhere else.

Well the link on IE8's Tools menu has always worked until very recently, redirecting to Microsoft Update for me, and why they would stop it working if the facility is still available is a bit of a mystery as far as I'm concerned. I suspect it's just an accidental breakage of the redirection, and I hope they will fix it. A shame that the link isn't openly in the registry to be changed, as the address of the help links on the Windows Event Viewer entries is.

I'm not disputing that .NET 2.0 SP2 is now part of .NET 3.5's installation, indeed it may now not be possible to get .NET 2.0 SP2 as a standalone installation, but the installation file for KB4020517 clearly says even in its file name that it's for .NET 2.0 SP2, and nothing to do with .NET 3.5. So, it's the redirect on http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com that is malfunctioning, much as the redirect on the further help file links on the Windows Event Viewer entries is also malfunctioning. Microsoft really don't know what they're doing in these areas nowadays do they! Hopefully it will be fixed, but I'm not holding my breath!

@heinoganda I realise that .NET 2.0 SP2 is included in the .NET 3.5 installation, but the install of KB4020517 all through its installation routine said it was updating .NET 2.0 SP2, not .NET 3.5, so I think it should be flagged as being an update for .NET 2.0 SP2, not .NET 3.5. There may be people with .NET 2.0 SP2 installed, but not .NET 3.5, who don't need .NET 3.5 so have never installed it, and it should be clear that that update applies to them. The only updates I have listed in Add/Remove Programs that specifically say they are for .NET 3.5 SP1 are KB2736416 KB953595 KB2604111 KB963707 KB958484 KB2840629 and KB2861697. Is that correct? Cheers, Dave.