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KB3000850 - BIG update - Windows 8.1.2?


NoelC

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Well I finally got it installed!

:thumbup

 

I did a bit more research, and found a forum post which said that running "DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup" before running "DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth" made the latter work OK.

 

I ran "DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup" and got "Failed Error 5 Access is Denied".

Tried again in a "clean boot" configuration, and it eventually worked OK.

 

Tried "DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth" again, and it still failed on several attempts with the 80240021 time out error.

Finally abandoned that and just ran "SFC /scannow" again, which this time found no errors to fix.

 

Tried installing the update again, and finally it worked!

 

Now I've just got to get it installed on the other machine.

For goodness sake why does this have to be so hard?!

:)

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Think I sorted the prnekcl2.inf folder problem and ran the update again. Same result gets to 9% before it reboots twice fails and backs out the update.

 

This is a link to the latest CBS3 file https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=77AB10EE24AB37C5%211075 if someone wouldn't mind having yet another look at it.

 

you still have the prnekcl2.inf issue. Try the steps that Dave posted

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prnekcl2.inf also relates to the same Kodak printer mentioned in the first error message.

Since you say you have uninstalled the Kodak printer, maybe you have some garbage left over in the registry. I'm still on Win7, so I don't know if this will work, but have you tried a registry cleaner such as CCleaner to see if maybe that would help?

Cheers and Regards

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I run the CCleaner registry checker regularly and it's clean with no errors.

 

I first tried to run these from within the normal Windows environment

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

SFC /scannow

All completed without a problem. Then ran the update again from the standalone I had previously downloaded. This time it got about halfway and I got an Avast popup for 2 elements of suspicious activity relating to TiWorker.exe which it decided to quarantine immediately. The update failed without even getting to the reboot stage.

Here's the CBS 4 file following  that attempt https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=77AB10EE24AB37C5%211082

 

I then tried from a clean boot environment

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

SFC /scannow

Again all completed without a problem. Then ran the update again from the standalone I had previously downloaded. This time same scenario it failed without requiring a reboot. I wonder if the standalone installer may be to blame?

 

I then tried from a clean boot environment

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

SFC /scannow

Again all completed without a problem. Then ran the update again this time from Windows Update in case the standalone installer was damaged/corrupted. This time back to square one it gets to 9% before it reboots twice fails and backs out the update.

Here's the CBS 5 file following  this attempt https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=77AB10EE24AB37C5%211083

 

I'm now running out of ideas so would be very grateful if anyone can see anything untoward in the CBS log or for any ideas on way forward from here.

Edited by youravinalarrrf
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I think I'll leave this "roll-up" alone for awhile considering your (NoelC) experiences with it.

Also since you mentioned it in this forum, I would like to know why you have been wanting to dump Avast antivirus for awhile.  I was using it on Windows 7 but I switched to the free version of Bitdefender on my new laptop with Windows 8.1 OS.  I made this decision after researching the current market of antivirus applications and found most of the reviewers had high praises for it.  It also picked up several "best of" awards in the last several years.  Another plus is it does scans while your computer is idle completely on it's own.  It is truly set it and forget it!

Still curious about Avast though.

 

Thanks NoelC

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I think I'll leave this "roll-up" alone for awhile considering your (NoelC) experiences with it.

Also since you mentioned it in this forum, I would like to know why you have been wanting to dump Avast antivirus for awhile.  I was using it on Windows 7 but I switched to the free version of Bitdefender on my new laptop with Windows 8.1 OS.  I made this decision after researching the current market of antivirus applications and found most of the reviewers had high praises for it.  It also picked up several "best of" awards in the last several years.  Another plus is it does scans while your computer is idle completely on it's own.  It is truly set it and forget it!

Still curious about Avast though.

 

Thanks NoelC

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Mostly it's the degrading performance of Avast over the past year (it now slows my systems down about 50% just by being present), but also a lot of other little things that added up to me concluding that the quality of their engineering is slipping.  I wrote this up on the Avast forum a few days ago...

 

FYI, on my main workstation I HAVE ditched Avast, as of 2 days ago.  I'm happy about the decision as it has returned all my lost performance.

 

 

It seems the time has come when Avast is no longer providing sufficient value for me to put up with the downsides, some of which I'll list here:
 

  • Fails badly with the latest Windows Update Roll-up
  • No word at all in more than a day from Avast engineering on the above issue
  • Becoming less and less efficient, and slowing my work down a lot lately
  • Too many false positives
  • Lack of an option to override blocking even a [susp] false positive when it is detected
  • Features not working / obeying UI settings (e.g., scans popping UI open & loss of voice announcements)
  • Heading in directions I don't want or can't use (e.g., NG)
  • Disruption of work (e.g,. processes failing when Avast chooses to do a Deep Scan)
  • Providing more and more unwanted programs (which of course can be deconfigured, but it's the principle)
  • Packaging of unwanted software components in Avast executables/DLLs
  • Predatory / misleading operation (e.g., opt outs, aggressive installer UI choices)
  • Dropping rankings in tests of multiple AV packages
  • Need to uninstall / reinstall the program to keep it working (even once was too many times)

Frankly that list got longer than I expected.  It wasn't until I started writing it up that I realized how much I've been putting up with.  Loyalty only goes so far before an obvious value imbalance can no longer be ignored.  Uninstalling it has simply become necessary, because of the first item, and I'm not regretting it.

You folks please feel free debate the above all you like.  Pick it apart, show that I'm being rash - or whatever you like.  It's not going to change my perceptions or opinions, which are based on MY needs for an AV product.  Perhaps they apply to others or perhaps they don't.  I starting out writing this message thinking I could be tempted into trying the product again once the compatibility issue with the Windows Update is worked out.  Now I'm not so sure about that, but I'll keep my options open.

It's been a long run for me - I've been using Avast continuously since 2005 and have never gotten a malware infection - but honestly the product just appears to be falling out of step with the cutting edge lately.

Thanks, folks, it's been fun.

 

 

 

Then subsequently...

 

 

 

I tested in a clean, perfectly functioning virtual machine configured similarly to my host system.  It was borked badly right after a successful install of OPTIONAL update KB3000850.  Uninstalling Avast cleared it up, leaving no more problems.  I executed a suite of tests to be sure.  Then, because don't like to leave stones unturned, I installed 10.0.2208.712 via the offline installer and it seemed to work, and even did a successful scan.  But all the symptoms returned after a reboot.  Removal again left the system working, and rebootable.

Removal of Avast from my host workstation prior to installation of KB3000850 has left me with a perfectly functioning system.  I am not willing to gamble the health of the workstation on an attempt to reinstall after the VM testing went so badly.

By the way, though Avast may have improved it, AvastClear still does not get everything.  In my case I had to remove the Outlook 365 add-on via regedit.

Edit:  Oh, and by the way, using real work (Visual Studio system build time of a medium sized project) as a benchmark, I was seeing build times of 51 to 54 seconds EVEN AFTER excluding some Avast File Shield checks in my development area.  Same activity after removing Avast and just using Windows Defender:  30 to 33 seconds.  With Avast (months ago) I once saw times in the 28 to 30 second range, and that was without having excluded anything yet.  Something's definitely going wrong at Avast.

 

 

 

-Noel

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Edit:  Oh, and by the way, using real work (Visual Studio system build time of a medium sized project) as a benchmark, I was seeing build times of 51 to 54 seconds EVEN AFTER excluding some Avast File Shield checks in my development area.  Same activity after removing Avast and just using Windows Defender:  30 to 33 seconds.  With Avast (months ago) I once saw times in the 28 to 30 second range, and that was without having excluded anything yet.  Something's definitely going wrong at Avast.

Or maybe you started developing in Visual Studio a few moths ago something that Avast (in good faith) considered viruses and it is automagically keeping an eye open on all your activities ... :whistle:  ;)

 

jaclaz

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I installed the update with relative ease on my other machine.

All that was needed was a run of SFC /scannow which restored the missing Start Menu folders.

 

Why the update can't just restore the missing folders itself as part of its routine rather than just failing is quite beyond me!

 

As I said before, if those folders are so essential, why does the system not stop you deleting or re-naming them?

Surely if they are necessary system folders Windows File Protection should just restore them automatically as it does with other system files.

 

The update also installed KB3014442 as a separate install, which I installed manually from the downloaded offline files on the other machine.

What that is I have no idea, searching for information just takes you to the KB3000850 information.

It's obviously part of it, but why it should be a separate download and history entry is strange.

 

All sorted now anyway.

I have simply hidden the Start Menu folders that the update needed, rather than deleting them, so hopefully everything will work OK straight away next time!

Thanks for all your help everyone, and I hope this thread helps others in the same situation as I was.

Cheers, Dave.

:)

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FYI, on my main workstation I HAVE ditched Avast, as of 2 days ago.  I'm happy about the decision as it has returned all my lost performance.

Why did you use it to begin with? Windows Defender is just fine (if you don't mind the lack of context-menu-initiated scanning), and the least likely to cause trouble.
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I have been using Avast since around 2005.  Back then one NEEDED a 3rd party AV solution, and they were one of the first who really embraced 64 bit computing.

 

I tested it against Windows Defender in late 2013, when I first installed Windows 8.1 (at that time I moved up from Windows 7), and I found Avast to have a slight edge in performance (i.e., Avast was better), so I stuck with it.

 

Up to early 2014 Avast has been an efficient system, so I stayed with what worked and I knew to be stable.  You get to know a product and its characteristics, and you build up a comfort level with it.

 

However, during 2014 the product has clearly changed (see some of my bullet items above).  I don't know if the company went through upheaval or they lost a particularly smart engineer or what, but toward later 2014 the product began to cause problems (e.g., more false positives) and just cost more overhead by being in the system. 

 

As a long-time career engineer, I perceive failure inside the company through subtle cues from the changing nature of the product.

 

That Avast completely borked my test system on the release of KB3000850 was the last straw, and that pushed me over the edge to take it out (the only recourse at the time; it took Avast several days to acknowledge and fix the problem). 

 

Based on completely restored performance, I'm glad I've made that decision.

 

Funny thing is, because of all the other things I do to keep away from malware, and the nature of how I use my systems, Avast really hasn't blocked any real threats in a long, long time, so my risk in removing it is minimal.  Whatever differences in protection between the two (and it may well be that Windows Defender is actually better now) are mostly inconsequential.

 

As a side note:  The first full scan I did with Defender after removing Avast turned up a threat on a backup drive.  Some Java Runtime 6 component that had never been identified by Avast as a problem.  That component is long gone from my system - everything's on version 7 now.

 

It's really too bad for them... I've published two books on configuring Windows, and in each is a whole page where I recommend Avast enthusiastically.  That page is going to come out of my updated Windows 8 book.

 

-Noel

Edited by NoelC
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Or maybe you started developing in Visual Studio a few moths ago something that Avast (in good faith) considered viruses and it is automagically keeping an eye open on all your activities ... :whistle:  ;)

 

If you're at all serious about that comment, the specific things it has been finding [susp] (suspicious) and blocking were off-mainstream tools, e.g., from Microsoft's old .chm help file creation system or Adobe's Photoshop SDK.

 

Avast's claim to fame is that they've invented some kind of iterative "virus signature minimization" system that they run on super fast computers (possibly even on GPUs) in order to - supposedly - make the virus scanning process as efficient as possible.

 

In real terms, my guess is that they have a huge database of malware, and a possibly even huger database of legitimate software.  Their system strives to identify all the malware and exclude all the goodware.  Obviously, when the numbers of things checked is in the millions (or more), this leads to the possibility of generating virus signature databases that could inadvertently match legitimate software that they don't have in their database.  Notably, upon using their "false positive report" system, the false positive detections go away very quickly - like within a day or two.  Human involvement is minimal.

 

It's a pretty cool idea, conceptually, and they obviously pulled it off for years, but the actual implementation seems to be starting to fall apart at the seams.

 

-Noel

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Hi all

Been having some major issues with the installation of this update. Essentially none of my applications are functional, getting the following error message.

"This application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command-line sxtrace.exe tool for more detail

Interestingly, my 64bit applications (office, and DAW) work fine.

I can in uninstall the update and everything works fine again, though that's more a fix than a solution.

Anyone able to give any thoughts?

Thanks

Edit: I don't have avast installed

Edited by MSD
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Without the update installed, does your system pass a check using the following?

 

SFC  /VERIFYONLY

 

I ran across this page, published by Microsoft, which describes ways to reset your Windows Update components, and provides a Microsoft Fixit troubleshooter.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/971058?wa=wsignin1.0

 

I realize that in your case the update has been applied without error and the problem is in running the system afterward, so I don't know if it's directly applicable.  But it at least gives you an inroad to start troubleshooting problems with your servicing database.

 

-Noel

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