Ty Gary, excellent research work!
"GaryM" wrote:
> If you are getting a cascaded (repeating) windows update frame issues then
> read this post for the solution. Please bear with me as it's quite a long
> explanation but it details exactly what I did to find the actual cause (and
> subsequently fix it)...
>
> This problem hit me about 2 weeks ago and I also notice there are quite a
> few posts on here from other people with the same problem. Basically, the
> problem manifests itself in a way that after going to the Windows Update
> website, selecting the "custom" option button for updates and then getting
> the available list of updates in the left hand menu, selecting anything other
> than the default "High Priority" (i.e. selecting "Software, Optional" or
> "Hardware, Optional") just causes the whole windows update page to be
> re-displayed in the frame where the updates are usually shown. With this
> problem there seems to be no way to get to and install anything other than
> the high priority updates.
>
> This became a major stumbling block for me because I religiously keep my PC
> up-to-date with software updates other than just the high priority updates
> and there seemed to be no-one who knew the answer.
>
> Therefore, yesterday I took it upon myself to do some in-depth investigation
> into this problem that had been bugging me for weeks by using a Virtual PC
> session to try and replicate the problem as I really didn't want to have to
> resort to rebuilding my real machine from scratch. The first thing I noticed
> was that with a clean install of XP (with SP2) there was no problem with
> Windows Update. I then proceeded to install every available update offered by
> the Windows Update website. After this, still no problems...Windows Update
> still worked perfectly. So...it MUST be a problem caused by some other
> software installed on my machine. I therefore had no choice but to go through
> the painful and time consuming task of installing every piece of software on
> the Virtual PC that was on my real machine one at a time with a reboot of the
> VPC and retry of the Windows Update after each installation until I found the
> piece of software that "broke" Windows Update. After many hours and a very
> long day I finally succeeded in tracking down the cause. It was actually some
> software called "BitComet" which I had installed a new version of in just the
> last few weeks (version 0.84 to be exact) so it tied in exactly with when my
> Windows Update problem started happening. If I uninstalled the BitComet
> software, Windows Update then worked perfectly again so the BitComet software
> was definitely the cause of my problem. More detailed investigation (namely
> the running of Filemon and Regmon during the installation of BitComet) showed
> that it installed a new Browser Helper Object. With BitComet left installed
> (and thus Windows Update "broken") I then went into Internet Explorer,
> located the BitComet Browser Helper Object add-on, disabled it and then
> restarted Internet Explorer. RESULT!!! Windows Update worked perfectly :-D
> So...something in the BitComet Browser Helper Object was interfering with the
> Windows Update processing in some way. I tried installing older versions of
> BitComet and the problem seems to have been introduced in version 0.83 and
> later as versions 0.82 and prior don't break the Windows Update process.
>
> Even with a completely clean build of Windows XP SP2 and no Windows Updates
> applied at all, after installing BitComet 0.84 it broke the Windows Update
> process so the problem is not caused by any recent Windows Updates that have
> been applied in the last few weeks...the Windows Update process is broken as
> a direct result of something in the third party software Browser Helper
> Objects.
>
> In my particular case, BitComet 0.84 was the cause of the problem but if you
> don't have that particular piece of software installed then it's possible
> that a Browser Helper Object from another piece of software is the cause of
> your problem. To find out which BHO might be causing your problem, do the
> following (this is assuming you're running IE6 or IE7 in Windows XP
> SP2...previous versions of XP and/or IE may differ)...
>
> 1) Open Internet Explorer
> 2) Select Tools -> Internet Options
> 3) Select the 'Programs' tab
> 4) Click the 'Manage add-ons' button
> 5) Select 'Add-ons that have been used by Internet Explorer' in the dropdown
> 6) Select each item in turn that has a Type of 'Browser Helper Object' and
> disable it
> 7) Click OK
> 8) Start Windows Update (or Microsoft Update) and click the 'Custom' button
> 9) When the list of updates appear, you should now be able to select the
> "Software, Optional" or "Hardware, Optional" without problems
>
> After you've done this and proven that Windows Update is working properly
> again with all Browser Helper Objects disabled, go back into the add-ons
> dialog and re-enable each BHO one at a time trying the Windows Update process
> after enabling each one. Doing this should allow you to pinpoint exactly
> which BHO is the cause of the problem and you can then deal with it by either
> just leaving that particular BHO disabled or uninstalling the software to
> which it belongs.
>
> I don't know who is actually to blame for this...Microsoft for allowing the
> Windows Update process to be broken so easily with a BHO or the software
> vendor for not testing their BHO properly but I'll be sending the vendors of
> BitComet an email informing them of this problem so they will (hopefully)
> address the problem in their BHO and fix it. I suggest that if anyone finds
> any other software vendors whose BHOs appear to break the Windows Update
> process that they post the name of the software (and version) in this thread
> so there is a known list of software whose BHOs break the Windows Update
> process.
>
> I hope this will be of help to other people who like me have been tearing
> their hair out over the last couple of weeks with this problem :-s
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