• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Problem with MSE and Windows Update

K

K3Fallout

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 27, 2007
Messages
317
I have Windows 7. Recently, for whatever reason MSE has been trying to update new definitions but the download would only make it a quarter of the way and then the line wouldn't move anymore. Additionally, for any windows update I download, it would stay at 0%. Any idea what's going on?
 
K3Fallout said:
I have Windows 7. Recently, for whatever reason MSE has been trying to update new definitions but the download would only make it a quarter of the way and then the line wouldn't move anymore. Additionally, for any windows update I download, it would stay at 0%. Any idea what's going on?
Click to expand...

Assuming you haven't turned off any services or suchlike I'd be taking a look at your hosts file and make sure there's no erroneous entries there.
 
Virus is possible. The Windows service that handles Windows Update and third-party software updates is BITS, Background Intelligent Transfer Service. Viruses will often attack this service as AntiVirus programs often use this service to download virus definition updates.

However, generally when BITS goes down completely, you don't get any download progress whatsoever, the update simply fails. So... that's a little odd.

Try stopping / restarting the service. If that doesn't fix it, start looking for a virus. If no virus can be found, it could be a damaged windows component or a networking issue.
 
Last edited:
Oh my, well this is embarrassing. Alright well, I'm not very strong in cleaning up viruses or digging through Windows. I tried restarting BITS through services.msc but it failed. Virus scans come up clean. No clue what to do next. And it can't be a networking issue because I'm currently posting this the laptop that has the problem. Forgive me if I come off as an idiot.

Also: http://img574.imageshack.us/img574/9046/10909396.png I am getting this now when usually it would keep trying to search for or download updates.
 
Last edited:
K3Fallout said:
Oh my, well this is embarrassing. Alright well, I'm not very strong in cleaning up viruses or digging through Windows. I tried restarting BITS through services.msc but it failed. Virus scans come up clean. No clue what to do next. And it can't be a networking issue because I'm currently posting this the laptop that has the problem. Forgive me if I come off as an idiot.

Also: http://img574.imageshack.us/img574/9046/10909396.png I am getting this now when usually it would keep trying to search for or download updates.
Click to expand...

You mention restarting BITS failed. Why did it fail (it should give you an error)?
 
It gave a specific error number that I forgot, but it also said that "did not restart in a timely fashion". It was something to that accord. If you want, I'll try it again and get what it says exactly.
 
look in the System or Application event logs. One of them will have logged the error message received when the service failed to restart.
 
Run a scan with Trojan Remover.

http://www.simplysup.com/

Hopefully it will allow you to download the updates. If not, the base install might find and fix some stuff.

It could also be that BITS is corrupted and needs to be wiped and reinstalled. I have a method to do that in XP but I haven't had to do it in Win7 yet.
 
I scanned with your mentioned program and nothing got picked up. I'll probably try again in safe mode just to be safe. At this point I find it unlikely that I have a virus. I have some doubt that something would have gotten passed my firefox usage with noscript and adblock.
 
K3Fallout said:
I scanned with your mentioned program and nothing got picked up. I'll probably try again in safe mode just to be safe. At this point I find it unlikely that I have a virus. I have some doubt that something would have gotten passed my firefox usage with noscript and adblock.
Click to expand...

I'd do a sfc /scannow and see if there are any damaged system files.
 
the scan came up clean. Strange though, my MSE looks to be updated but the windows update still refuses to download.
 
K3Fallout said:
the scan came up clean. Strange though, my MSE looks to be updated but the windows update still refuses to download.
Click to expand...


when you updated MSE 1.0 to 2.0 did you download the install directly from the MSI download page or did you do the automatic windows update to MSE 2.0? if you did the automatic update then you need to download the installer from the MSE page and update that way. may solve your problem with definitions not fully downloading.
 
I seem to have this problem every time I install MSE with other updates/installs going and end up having to remove and then re-install it. After I re-install, it seems to work fine. Let us know if this helps you.
 
Currently I am trying that Microsoft Fixit link that Shane has provided for me. If that doesn't work then I'll go about the reinstallation process. Let you guys know how it goes soon and thank you for the help.
"
EDIT: Currently running that Fixit program and it says "service 'windows update' (WUASERV) could not be stopped." I tried going through services.msc and disabling windows update but I got the same error. If no one has an idea of how to go beyond this then I'll just reinstall.
 
Last edited:
If you still think it is malware, then please try Malwarebytes. It still removes them the best IMHO if it is adware/spyware. But, before installing a ton of programs to "fix" it, I would simply try the re-install.
 
I uninstalled MSE, and windows update still does not seem to be working. I'll try malwarebytes shortly.

EDIT: Malwarebytes came up clean as well. I think I'm starting to run out of options.
 
Last edited:
Sorry for the double posting and unnecessary bump but I uninstalled MSE. Even after uninstalling it, windows update still refuses to download. I'm currently trying to reinstall it and it says it's installing but it never seems to finish. This is all incredibly strange.
 
Are you referring to MSE or windows updates? At this point, I think I might just reformat though having to configure a USB load of Windows 7 will be a headache as well since my laptop doesn't have a cd drive.
 
Well...it was my understanding that you had problems with 2 programs, but your last statement seemed focused on Windows Update. Both of these issues CAN happen independently and at the same time. As far as Windows updates, sometimes I fix it by manually downloading an update or two and it miraculously goes back to normal. I can't say if this works 100% of the time, but does work an awful lot when this problem occurs on a new install. As far as MSE, when I have these troubles, it is typically fixed by removing the program and then re-installing (not through an update service but rather manually downloading it.). The majority of the time I have the MSE issue when installing a service pack at the same time as MSE on a new install, but have seen it get screwy with general Windows updates.
 
Yeah I am having problems with both, but as I said in an earlier post I did go about uninstalling MSE and now when I reinstall it, the reinstallation screen just hangs. But I will try to manually install updates.
 
K3Fallout said:
Sorry for the double posting and unnecessary bump but I uninstalled MSE. Even after uninstalling it, windows update still refuses to download. I'm currently trying to reinstall it and it says it's installing but it never seems to finish. This is all incredibly strange.
Click to expand...

I'll reiterate what I said before; your BITS is broken, it's nothing to do with MSE. You even told us that you could not manually start the BITS service. Without it, any kind of program that does it's updates via Windows will fail.
 
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm just going to reformat my laptop now, so consider this thread dead.
 
Not a problem... there were some people that pointed their finger at MSE in this thread but I think it's because they didn't read the whole thread, particularly the part where you said that attempting to start the BITS service failed.

It's still possible you got hit by a virus that is either no longer present or hiding very well. The only times I've seen BITS stop working in the past was on infected machines. Viruses don't want your AV software updating itself with signature definitions that might uncover it. That may be exactly why, if there is a virus, your AV cannot find it. ;)
 
I just tried MSE for the first time. I was little shocked that it automatically changed my auto updates back to auto in services! And in control panel! And then proceeded to force 37 updates on me on my next shut down.

And then if you go disable auto updates again it MSE won't update. They are tied together it seems.

Oh well...gonna give it a try for a while...seems smooth.

Sorry to thread jack just didn't think it was worthy of new thread and all interested parties are here.

Electorfreak your blog is sweet! Never saw this before....funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCgQDjiotG0&feature=player_embedded
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top