Updatez to Axis the Webz



  • My parents have a fairly old laptop that they wanted to get working again. One of my brothers had done a fresh (wipe and install) reinstallation of Windows XP on it, but he forgot to keep the drivers for the system to reinstall them afterwards. Not too much of a problem. I just downloaded them from the manufacturer's website using a different computer and copied them over on a flash drive. Ok. Stuff is recognized and works now.

    Oh, wait. The wireless access is WPA-protected and Windows XP SP1 (which is what was installed) only supports WEP encryption and not WPA. No problem. Download SP3, copy over, install. Boom. WPA and internets.

    Oh, wait. IE6 is stupid and does almost nothing of use on the modern web. Ok, no problem, we like Chrome better anyways. But IE6 doesn't support something on the Chrome download page, so the download link is basically broken. Ok. So maybe I have to use a newer version of IE. I'll just upgrade.

    But, um, Windows XP uses the obsolete update site instead of the Windows Update tool. So I'll try the direct download from Microsoft.com. But lookie here: microsoft.com doesn't work in IE6. Uh, what? Ok. I can understand other sites not working correctly, but Microsoft? Your own product won't work on your own site? And you don't have an alternate method for those who have outdated browsers...

    Ok, this is approaching the realm of extreme convolution. There is one modern browser I found that I can download using IE6: Mozilla's Firefox! Yay! I download and install FF. Then I can use it to get Chrome (which I wanted in the first place).


    And now they can watch Grumpy Cat.



  • @Jedalyzer said:

    But, um, Windows XP uses the obsolete update site instead of the Windows Update tool.

    This is where you went wrong. That is not true.



  • @Jedalyzer said:

    There is one modern browser I found that I can download using IE6: Mozilla's Firefox!
     

    Exactly. If you want to upgrade your entire system just so you can use a broken download page (came-on Google, it's not rocket sicence, you put a document on a URL, when people ask for that URL, you just send them the documment), go ahead. I'd prefer to use a non-broken one.

    And hey, I'm complaining about Google in a thread about Microsoft! There must be something wrong with me today.



  • @Jedalyzer said:

    ... he forgot to keep the drivers for the system to reinstall them afterwards... I just downloaded them from the manufacturer's website using a different computer and copied them over on a flash drive.

    Please explain why you didn't do THE EXACT SAME THING AS ABOVE BUT WITH THE CHROME INSTALLER instead of wasting your time with IE6, then wasting your time writing this pointless post, then wasting my time reading it?

    Go on, I'll wait.

    Or was this supposed to be a troll post triggering a circlejerk about how bad IE is? Because in that case you've failed. You've failed so badly in fact, that the only way to remove the shame of said failure is to invent a time machine, then go back in time and abort yourself, thus preventing you and this thread from ever existing. As a bonus, it would also prevent my time from being wasted on this thread.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Jedalyzer said:
    But, um, Windows XP uses the obsolete update site instead of the Windows Update tool.

    This is where you went wrong. That is not true.


    Well, it does use a web interface, though it obviously uses an ActiveX control to install the stuff. I'm not sure why you'd call it "obsolete" (at least, any more obsolete than the rest of Windows XP).

    Maybe he meant that the site is unusable due to that bug. I tried to install Windows XP on a virtual machine just a few weeks ago and Windows Update just sat there "searching for updates" for a solid 6 hours before I got bored and cancelled.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    @Jedalyzer said:
    But, um, Windows XP uses the obsolete update site instead of the Windows Update tool.

    This is where you went wrong. That is not true.

     

    No, he went wrong first by installing XP, an OS which goes out of support in 4 months.



  • @anonymous234 said:

    Well, it does use a web interface,

    Nope. In XP, you could just use the control panel.

    Well maybe not the copy on the CD, but certainly by SP3.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @anonymous234 said:
    Well, it does use a web interface,

    Nope. In XP, you could just use the control panel.

    Well maybe not the copy on the CD, but certainly by SP3.

    I wonder how you could update an unpatched Windows XP to service pack 3. Maybe some kind of... no, that's too obvious.



  • @The_Assimilator said:

    Go on, I'll wait.

    Oooh, so I can now waste your time making you wait? }:-D

    I'll answer:

    @The_Assimilator said:
    @Jedalyzer said:
    I just downloaded ... using a different computer and copied them over on a flash drive.

    Please explain why you didn't do THE EXACT SAME THING AS ABOVE...?

    Um, because I forgot you could do that...? I also wanted to do as much as I could with the computer itself. Isolation of resources, you know. :P

    @anonymous234 said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @Jedalyzer said:
    But, um, Windows XP uses the obsolete update site instead of the Windows Update tool.

    This is where you went wrong. That is not true.

    Well, it does use a web interface, though it obviously uses an ActiveX control to install the stuff. I'm not sure why you'd call it "obsolete" (at least, any more obsolete than the rest of Windows XP).
    Maybe he meant that the site is unusable due to that bug. I tried to install Windows XP on a virtual machine just a few weeks ago and Windows Update just sat there "searching for updates" for a solid 6 hours before I got bored and cancelled.

    I just looked for update or upgrade, and IE6 doesn't have upgrade functionality built-in that I could see, and the Windows update site gave some error about not being able to load updates for my system or something like that.

    @FrostCat said:

    No, he went wrong first by installing XP, an OS which goes out of support in 4 months.

    Meh, it works, and we have it.

    @blakeyrat said:

    @anonymous234 said:
    Well, it does use a web interface,

    Nope. In XP, you could just use the control panel.

    Ah. I did not think of this. I've become familiar with finding Windows Update by typing it into the Start search box in Win7; I forgot about it residing in the CP.

    @Ben L. said:

    ...@blakeyrat said:
    Well maybe not the copy on the CD, but certainly by SP3.

    I wonder how you could update an unpatched Windows XP to service pack 3. Maybe some kind of... no, that's too obvious.

    Maybe I'm too tired right now, but I'm not getting it.



  • @FrostCat said:

    , an OS which goes out of support in 4 months.

    Support Shummort. My bank was still using windows 3.x when I opened my account there in 2005. Of course really the only thing it was used as was a terminal program to a real OS, but still. (Not sure if 3.11 or NT 3.x as they had the same UI to the casual observer)



  • Could it have been an OS/2 of similar vintage? As I recall that was fairly popular in the banking sector, and one of the reasons Parallels got developed in the first place.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Ben L. said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @anonymous234 said:
    Well, it does use a web interface,

    Nope. In XP, you could just use the control panel.

    Well maybe not the copy on the CD, but certainly by SP3.

    I wonder how you could update an unpatched Windows XP to service pack 3. Maybe some kind of... no, that's too obvious.

    Download it from the website, duh. IIRC you had to apply SP2 then SP3, in a reversion of the usual cumulativity of MS patches.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Zemm said:

    @FrostCat said:
    , an OS which goes out of support in 4 months.

    Support Shummort. My bank was still using windows 3.x when I opened my account there in 2005. Of course really the only thing it was used as was a terminal program to a real OS, but still. (Not sure if 3.11 or NT 3.x as they had the same UI to the casual observer)

    Sure, that's great--for something not connected to the internet. A home PC with XP will probably get owned pretty quick. I wouldn't be surprised if people have held back reporting vulnerabilities until after the support ended.



  • @Jedalyzer said:

    microsoft.com doesn't work in IE6.

    This, my friend, is very good news.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Jedalyzer said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @anonymous234 said:
    Well, it does use a web interface,

    Nope. In XP, you could just use the control panel.

    Ah. I did not think of this. I've become familiar with finding Windows Update by typing it into the Start search box in Win7; I forgot about it residing in the CP.

    The last time I tried to check for updates in XP from the control panel security / update widget, it opened IE at the MS Update page. At least they fixed this by 7.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Jedalyzer said:
    But, um, Windows XP uses the obsolete update site instead of the Windows Update tool.

    This is where you went wrong. That is not true.

    There are lots of very odd problems with XP and Windows Update.

    After a particular Dell PC was reinstalled anew with XP SP3 (using a Dell XP SP3 bare OEM CD), the Windows Update site failed to load with one of Windows Update's hilariously useless hex error numbers. Apparently that hex code could mean anything and there are tons of different fixes, none of which make any sense. The only one I found that worked was some third-party package to force install a later Windows Update client (which Microsoft refuse to let you have), by way of a huge batch script that downloads the new update client and every localisation pack (but not in any form that you can use directly), splits out all the MSI files, writes some hex out into a new file, patches some file with the hex code, builds a whole new MSI file from all the ones it downloaded plus the tweaks, and sets it running. Seeing all the steps scroll up the screen gives you that warm apt-get glow. Some tools were bundled (chiefly wget) but most of what it needed (including 7-Zip, Microsoft's MSI packager, and even XVI (hex editor) to do the hex patching) was downloaded on the fly, and everything but the batch file and the final MSI were removed at the end.

    All that to work around some meaningless hex error. Monumental and extremely impressive effort, yet a huge WTF of its own. And it was all for naught, as the previously discussed bugs in Windows Update would just cause the update client to hang — no updates when left to run all night, still sat on 100% CPU. I don't think it worked even after IE8 was manually installed — needs more cowbell before updating will ever work.

    If you have XP SP2, you may need to update the Windows Update client software first, as the website IE gives you would just throw up some useless error page instead of offer you a client update (which is possibly since fixed — not sure on that). Since the OP started with SP1, it's easily possible that the Windows Update client is still out-of-date and IE is looking to the wrong URL. There are a lot more bugs than I've ever encountered. At one stage, XP's updates via the Web were completely taken down by a bad update, which just caused the check to fail with another useless hex code.

    There already is a whole topic devoted to how messed-up Windows Update is. Enterprisey over-engineering at its finest.

    [Edit: Some of the above may only apply if you switched to Microsoft Update. I have no idea.]


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Going by the title, I thought you were going to have a good rant about Apache Axis, which is very WTF-worthy in so many ways. (I think it was the insane DOM implementation that did for me, ever so many years ago, but I'm told that it's no better now.) Instead you're just blathering on about downloading web browsers on an ancient OS...



  • @FrostCat said:

    @Ben L. said:
    @blakeyrat said:
    @anonymous234 said:
    Well, it does use a web interface,

    Nope. In XP, you could just use the control panel.

    Well maybe not the copy on the CD, but certainly by SP3.

    I wonder how you could update an unpatched Windows XP to service pack 3. Maybe some kind of... no, that's too obvious.

    Download it from the website, duh. IIRC you had to apply SP2 then SP3, in a reversion of the usual cumulativity of MS patches.

    No, you can directly update SP1 -> SP3. Not sure about "SP0" (original, unpatched) to SP2 or SP3, though.

    @boomzilla said:

    @Jedalyzer said:
    @blakeyrat said:
    @anonymous234 said:
    Well, it does use a web interface,

    Nope. In XP, you could just use the control panel.

    Ah. I did not think of this. I've become familiar with finding Windows Update by typing it into the Start search box in Win7; I forgot about it residing in the CP.

    The last time I tried to check for updates in XP from the control panel security / update widget, it opened IE at the MS Update page. At least they fixed this by 7.

    Ah, yeah, it does. Even SP3 gives an error page though.



  • @dkf said:

    Going by the title, I thought you were going to have a good rant about Apache Axis, which is very WTF-worthy in so many ways. (I think it was the insane DOM implementation that did for me, ever so many years ago, but I'm told that it's no better now.) Instead you're just blathering on about downloading web browsers on an ancient OS...
    Filed under: <blue>disappoint</blue>

    Sorry.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Jedalyzer said:
    But, um, Windows XP uses the obsolete update site instead of the Windows Update tool.

    This is where you went wrong. That is not true.

    @Jedalyzer said:

    @boomzilla said:
    The last time I tried to check for updates in XP from the control panel security / update widget, it opened IE at the MS Update page. At least they fixed this by 7.

    Ah, yeah, it does. Even SP3 gives an error page though.

    Oh snap.



  • @spamcourt said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @Jedalyzer said:
    But, um, Windows XP uses the obsolete update site instead of the Windows Update tool.

    This is where you went wrong. That is not true.

    @Jedalyzer said:

    @boomzilla said:
    The last time I tried to check for updates in XP from the control panel security / update widget, it opened IE at the MS Update page. At least they fixed this by 7.

    Ah, yeah, it does. Even SP3 gives an error page though.

    Oh snap.

    Funtime activity: go to windows update in any non-IE browser.

    <font size="3" color="#587edc"> Thanks for your interest in getting updates from us. </font>

    <font size="2">To use this site, you must be running Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later.</font>


  • @Zemm said:

    My bank was still using windows 3.x when I opened my account there in 2005.
    So? Windows 3.1 was still sold until end of 2008.
    @FrostCat said:
    Download it from the website, duh. IIRC you had to apply SP2 then SP3, in a reversion of the usual cumulativity of MS patches.
    IIRC, SP3 requires at least SP1 to install (but you can slipstream it to a RTM CD without problems).



  • @Zemm said:

    My bank was still using windows 3.x when I opened my account there in 2005. Of course really the only thing it was used as was a terminal program to a real OS, but still. (Not sure if 3.11 or NT 3.x as they had the same UI to the casual observer)
    Sounds like Westpac? They used NT3.51 (Workstation and Server) until about 2008 when they switched to XP SP2, Office XP and good ol' Lotus Notes, which at last check they still ran.

    (This was about two years ago - I had the, ah, "pleasure" of being a sub-sub-sub-contractor to image five new machines for our branch which took two days because four of the five had to be imaged twice because the first attempt on each never installed anything more than Windows and drivers and I could only do one at a time because any more would break their network apparently.)



  •  @Jedalyzer said:

    So I'll try the direct download from Microsoft.com. But lookie here: microsoft.com doesn't work in IE6.

    I remember that fun in the '90s.  I installed NT4.0 on an old 486 (*).  It came with IE2.  I tried to go and download whatever the current version was but microsoft.com was completely unusable.  I think I had to download netscape first in order to get all the updates.  

     

    (*) A really wierd one too.  Microchannel bus, SCSI drives and *not* made by IBM.  Who knew NCR made crappy computers too...



  • @ShawnD said:

    Who knew NCR made crappy computers too...
    Anyone who has had the misfortune to use anything manufactured by them.



  • Frack. A new computer is a couple of hundred bucks; certainly the time you've already spent getting this to work is at least that much. Just say "oh, it's broken" and buy them a new computer already.



  • @DrPepper said:

    Frack. A new computer is a couple of hundred bucks; certainly the time you've already spent getting this to work is at least that much. Just say "oh, it's broken" and buy them a new computer already.
     

    +1

    It's already a clean reinstall, might as well ditch XP altogether.



  • @Jedalyzer said:

    My parents have a fairly old laptop that they wanted to get working again. One of my brothers had done a fresh (wipe and install) reinstallation of Windows XP on it, but he forgot to keep the drivers for the system to reinstall them afterwards. Not too much of a problem. I just downloaded them from the manufacturer's website using a different computer and copied them over on a flash drive. Ok. Stuff is recognized and works now.

    Oh, wait. The wireless access is WPA-protected and Windows XP SP1 (which is what was installed) only supports WEP encryption and not WPA. No problem. Download SP3, copy over, install. Boom. WPA and internets.

    Oh, wait. IE6 is stupid and does almost nothing of use on the modern web. Ok, no problem, we like Firefox better anyways. I download and install FF (which I wanted in the first place). Yay!

    FTFY.


  • @dhromed said:

    @DrPepper said:

    Frack. A new computer is a couple of hundred bucks; certainly the time you've already spent getting this to work is at least that much. Just say "oh, it's broken" and buy them a new computer already.
     

    +1

    It's already a clean reinstall, might as well ditch XP altogether.

    Indeed - being XP you may as well take it out behind the chemical shed and put it out of its misery - I mean it's not as if though you can't buy a basic cheapass Lenovo off Newegg for $329.

    Then again, if it has at least GMA950 graphics and 2GB RAM you could put 7 on there and it'd run well enough, probably better than XP.



  •  

    Hi All,

    It took me a while to cut this one down. I created a blog post on my website with detailed instructions and links to the updates you'll need to download. It'll take you about 10 minutes and you should have Windows Updates working again.
    http://www.geekallday.com/windows-xp-sp3-update-issues/

    I'll also list the updates here that are required.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Douglasac said:

    Indeed - being XP you may as well take it out behind the chemical shed and put it out of its misery - I mean it's not as if though you can't buy a basic cheapass Lenovo off Newegg for $329.

    Then again, if it has at least GMA950 graphics and 2GB RAM you could put 7 on there and it'd run well enough, probably better than XP.
    That depends. If it's just a user demanding that nothing change ever, they can shut up and have a new computer instead.

    But if it's hooked up to some weird piece of expensive physical kit, then you're stuck. If you're lucky, the original supplier will be able to get you updated software for only a few thousand, but most suppliers seem to think that you need to buy a new multi-million dollar upgrade to the rest of the machinery at the same time. (I can sort-of understand their perspective, but throwing out a piece of hardware expensive enough to have a building dedicated to it just for the want of a replacement for some shitty only-just-works-on-one-OS-release OCX… nah. And the irony is it probably just talks text over a serial line anyway, and could probably be replaced with better code by any competent programmer in a couple of days.)



  • @dkf said:

    That depends. If it's just a user demanding that nothing change ever, they can shut up and have a new computer instead.

    But if it's hooked up to some weird piece of expensive physical kit, then you're stuck. If you're lucky, the original supplier will be able to get you updated software for only a few thousand, but most suppliers seem to think that you need to buy a new multi-million dollar upgrade to the rest of the machinery at the same time. (I can sort-of understand their perspective, but throwing out a piece of hardware expensive enough to have a building dedicated to it just for the want of a replacement for some shitty only-just-works-on-one-OS-release OCX… nah. And the irony is it probably just talks text over a serial line anyway, and could probably be replaced with better code by any competent programmer in a couple of days.)

    Well in this instance it's a home user, so I doubt they're using multi-million dollar machinery unless they're mad scientists.



  • @jmfridey said:

     

    Hi All,

    It took me a while to cut this one down. I created a blog post on my website with detailed instructions and links to the updates you'll need to download. It'll take you about 10 minutes and you should have Windows Updates working again.
    http://www.geekallday.com/windows-xp-sp3-update-issues/

    Splendid, dear chap. That did the trick.

    (In theory — I just ran the missing steps on this here butchered XP computer, the one where I'd run some bizarre update agent installing contraption, since you're the first person I've seen who's found an actual download link to the agent software. Windows Update is now working perfectly, and very fast at that.)


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Douglasac said:

    Well in this instance it's a home user, so I doubt they're using multi-million dollar machinery unless they're mad scientists.
    We shouldn't assume that they aren't…



  •  @Douglasac said:

    I doubt they're using multi-million dollar machinery unless they're mad scientists.

    Nah. I have no respect for mad scientists that don't write their own drivers.



  • @Mcoder said:

    @Douglasac said:

    I doubt they're using multi-million dollar machinery unless they're mad scientists.

    Nah. I have no respect for mad scientists that don't write their own drivers.

    Yeah, those that use the stock drivers tend to be the ones that fail their quests for world domination and end up in some kind of supermax prison.



  • @Daniel Beardsmore said:

    Windows Update is now working perfectly, and very fast at that.

    That will last less than a month, unless one of the last round of updates fixed their exponential-time patch revocation list processing stupidity. I've seen no announcement about that so I believe it's still there in all its horrid glory.

    I made a bunch of shortened URLs to the MS search page for IE Cumulative Security Updates you need to work around it (useful for phone support):

    is.gd/k96Q9z

    With any luck at least one of those will stay alive until MS fixes its shit or XP dies, whichever happens first.


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