Those of you running Windows Update 5 on XP Home - if you can try the
following, it would be helpful in tracing down what is causing download
corruption in IE. In my testing so far, it seems that when WU5 gets
installed, it then causes file downloads from IE to be corrupted - not all
downloads, but many, especially larger ones. The symptoms include seeing
unexpected WU installation failures for various updates - the download phase
seems to go fine, but during the install phase, some of the updates fail.
Also, even if you download other things outside of WU, files get corrupted.
I have finally traced this down to WU5 - I went and did a fresh base XP
install with no patches or other software added, and verified that downloads
worked fine. Then I went to
http://windowupdate.microsoft.com and allowed
WU5 components to be installed. Right after I did that, downloads via IE
started to become corrupted.
Here's the test:
If you are running Windows Update 5 on XP Home, here's the IE test I'd like
to ask you to try if you can. First, go to your IE options and clear your
cache -
(Tools - Internet Options - click on the "Delete Files" button, check the
"Delete all offline content", click OK - then click OK on the "Internet
Options" window). Then, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...en&Hash=QGBLRM
and click on the "Download" button. Save the file to any folder you wish.
Then, bring up a "My Computer" or Windows Explorer window and navigate to
the folder when you put the download. Double click on the download and you
should see a window showing the files being extracted (don't worry - you
will not actually install this, only check to see if the installation files
are successfully exctracted from the downloaded archive). You will then see
either one of two things - an error window during the file extraction or a
window prompting you to accept the license agreement (which you can then
just "I Decline" and the installation process will go no further). If you
made it to the license agreement, the file was not corrupted. If you didn't
the download was corrupted.
If you get through this without errors, I would suggest repeating it a
couple time to make sure (because occasionally files do come down
uncorrupted). Make sure to delete the IE cache before each download, so that
the file is completely downloaded again from Microsoft rather than simply
copied from cache.
If you see an error, please post what it was. If you did not, please post
that and the following: how many times you ran the test, whether you are
running at SP1 or SP2 level, and whether you are running the latest IE
updates.
This will help me to verify whether I am truly seeing what I think I am. If
what I am seeing is true, it may begin to explain many of the strange update
failures people have been having both via WU 5 and by direct download.
Thanks!
--Rick
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