XP Pro Update Hangs at "Initializing Update..."

I've seen a few posts on this topic but no definitive solutions in this
forum. I'm going to start a new post with my problem and as much information
as I can provide. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I am running XP Pro w/ SP 2 (installed by manufacturer) on a 16 month old HP
laptop with 1GB RAM and 2/3 of Hard Drive space remaining. Computer was
running flawlessly until mid May. I have updates set to notify me of
available updates and I select (usually all of them) and let them install.

1. In May I was prompted to install a single update and accepted. When I
shut down the computer I saw the "Installing 1 or 1 update...do not shut
down your
computer...it will shut down automatically" message. However this message
was still in place the next morning. I had to do a hard shutdown (holding
down my power button). From that point onward loggin on after powering up
took considerably longer than previously. (Sorry...don't remember what
update it was.)

2. I was recently offered about five updates and selected all of them and
decided to watch progress. Downloads all succeeded, but then the system hung
in the "Initializing installation..." step in the update window. It stayed
hung for about an hour when I pressed the Cancel button. Then the Cancel
step hung and stayed hung for an hour until I shut down the computer. This
resulted in a repeat of the message sequence in 1, above, including having
the computer still in the
installing update mode the next morning.

3. I was offered the same updates the next day and decided to just select
one and selected Windows Defender definition updates. Behavior repeated that
described in 2, above, both the hung "Initializing Installation..." status
in the dialog and the hung "Installing Update 1 of 1" message on shutdown.

(The dialog box I'm referencing is what you see if, after update
installation starts and the dialog shrinks down to the shield icon in the
task bar, you click the shield to restore the update status dialog.)

4. I retried the single update installation approach described in #3, above,
and watched the performance manager. Nothing happened there when I told the
system to start the update. In Task Manager the System Idle Process
commanded 99% of the resources.

I used one of my free support requests and contacted Microsoft. On the
advice of the Microsoft support professional I registered about a
half dozen .dll files. I received no errors on any of them. I also checked
a couple of settings and found them to be as expected. I also renamed some
folder whose name implied it held temporary program files (sorry, I don't
have the information in front of me). I replied back to
M'soft w/ my update log and activity log. A few days later I received an
inquiry from the specialist as to whether I was going to reply--clearly she
hadn't received my info. I resent, along with a separate simple message with
no attachment asking for acknowledgement of receipt, but no reply. I suspect
that my communications aren't getting through, though my system is not
reporting any bounce-back.

I've ploughed through the update log trying to make sense of it and one
thing I see is that when I initialized my single Windows Defender
definitions update the log reported that there was already an update in
progress. I strongly suspect
that I've got a registry entry somewhere that wasn't cleared and which is
preventing new updates from starting because the updater thinks it is already
doing an update.

I am also running Office XP Pro, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition, Visual
Studio 2005, Google Earth, SnagIt, and PokerStars. Nothing else I can think
of. No recent installs except possibly a PokerStars update. Also running
Norton Internet Security w/ firewall.

I REALLY don't want to have to rebuild my machine. Any advice would be
appreciated.

"lwestatbus" <> wrote in message
news:E4FEFDC5-9282-4C87-8A80-...
> I've seen a few posts on this topic but no definitive solutions in this
> forum. I'm going to start a new post with my problem and as much information
> as I can provide. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
>
> I am running XP Pro w/ SP 2 (installed by manufacturer) on a 16 month old HP
> laptop with 1GB RAM and 2/3 of Hard Drive space remaining. Computer was
> running flawlessly until mid May. I have updates set to notify me of
> available updates and I select (usually all of them) and let them install.
>
> 1. In May I was prompted to install a single update and accepted. When I
> shut down the computer I saw the "Installing 1 or 1 update...do not shut
> down your
> computer...it will shut down automatically" message. However this message
> was still in place the next morning. I had to do a hard shutdown (holding
> down my power button). From that point onward loggin on after powering up
> took considerably longer than previously.

> (Sorry...don't remember what update it was.)


So, figure it out using either the Event log or the WindowsUpdate.log


>
> 2. I was recently offered about five updates and selected all of them and
> decided to watch progress. Downloads all succeeded, but then the system hung
> in the "Initializing installation..." step in the update window. It stayed
> hung for about an hour when I pressed the Cancel button. Then the Cancel
> step hung and stayed hung for an hour until I shut down the computer. This
> resulted in a repeat of the message sequence in 1, above, including having
> the computer still in the
> installing update mode the next morning.
>
> 3. I was offered the same updates the next day and decided to just select
> one and selected Windows Defender definition updates. Behavior repeated that
> described in 2, above, both the hung "Initializing Installation..." status
> in the dialog and the hung "Installing Update 1 of 1" message on shutdown.
>
> (The dialog box I'm referencing is what you see if, after update
> installation starts and the dialog shrinks down to the shield icon in the
> task bar, you click the shield to restore the update status dialog.)
>
> 4. I retried the single update installation approach described in #3, above,
> and watched the performance manager. Nothing happened there when I told the
> system to start the update. In Task Manager the System Idle Process
> commanded 99% of the resources.
>
> I used one of my free support requests and contacted Microsoft. On the
> advice of the Microsoft support professional I registered about a
> half dozen .dll files. I received no errors on any of them. I also checked
> a couple of settings and found them to be as expected. I also renamed some
> folder whose name implied it held temporary program files (sorry, I don't
> have the information in front of me). I replied back to
> M'soft w/ my update log and activity log. A few days later I received an
> inquiry from the specialist as to whether I was going to reply--clearly she
> hadn't received my info. I resent, along with a separate simple message with
> no attachment asking for acknowledgement of receipt, but no reply. I suspect
> that my communications aren't getting through, though my system is not
> reporting any bounce-back.
>
> I've ploughed through the update log trying to make sense of it and one
> thing I see is that when I initialized my single Windows Defender
> definitions update the log reported that there was already an update in
> progress. I strongly suspect
> that I've got a registry entry somewhere that wasn't cleared and which is
> preventing new updates from starting because the updater thinks it is already
> doing an update.
>
> I am also running Office XP Pro, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition, Visual
> Studio 2005, Google Earth, SnagIt, and PokerStars. Nothing else I can think
> of. No recent installs except possibly a PokerStars update. Also running
> Norton Internet Security w/ firewall.
>
> I REALLY don't want to have to rebuild my machine. Any advice would be
> appreciated.


Temporarily disable security packages (in case they are interfering with the
update phase.) You don't need an Internet connection to do an update phase
but if you stay connected make sure that you have the Windows firewall enabled.

Also, try the equivalent manual download and install of an update.
If that doesn't work the problem is more to do with the associated product
than with whatever tool (e.g. WU MU or AU) to do the update for you
automatically. Then you might get more informed assistance in a newsgroup
which specializes in that product.


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---

First, the topic of this post should have been "XP Pro Update Hangs at
'Initializing Installation...'", not "Initializing Update".

I tried to do a system restore to a point before when the updates started
going screwy on me and the system restore process went into a Not Responding
mode pretty quickly.

I ran a complete check on my hard drive and found no problems.

Both system restore and the system info utilities will not open unless they
are the first thing I try to do after rebooting the computer.

I'm going to try a repair tonight and if that doesn't work probably
reinstall.

Any help would be appreciated.