Paul M
April 10th 05, 05:26 AM
Well, it's been over a month since Microsoft unleashed this turd of an
update. After 20+ years of using computers (but still a novice at how
they work at the system level) this is the worst computer disaster I
have ever encountered. It is a classic case of “The operation
succeeded, but the patient died,” complete with blue screens. Before I
went out of town for three weeks, I spent more than 50 hours trying to
figure out what was wrong. While out of town I discovered this
newsgroup, and spent more hours pouring over more than 5,000 posts. (I
really feel for those users, like my mother, age 89, who would not know
a newsgroup from a browser.)
From this group I learned:
1) The fix is to uninstall KB891711. I did, and everything returned to
normal on the next reboot.
But most questions and suggestions about the cause were never resolved:
2) The problem seems mostly to affect dial up connections (like mine);
but some cable connections have problems too.
3) The problem may be related to video cards or lack of them (like mine,
I think).
4) The problem may be related to other installed hardware and/or
software not yet identified.
5) The problem is not exclusive to IE, but also affects Netscape and
Firefox machines (like mine).
6) The update may be needed for Windows 98 or maybe not, depending on
whether you believe what Microsoft wrote or what its employees say.
7) Microsoft is aware of the problems and was close to being able to
duplicate them about three weeks ago.
One last thing I have definitely learned from this fiasco is not to
trust Microsoft Updates, no matter how “critical” they are labeled.
My bottom line question is whether there has been any solution yet?
Paul in San Francisco
update. After 20+ years of using computers (but still a novice at how
they work at the system level) this is the worst computer disaster I
have ever encountered. It is a classic case of “The operation
succeeded, but the patient died,” complete with blue screens. Before I
went out of town for three weeks, I spent more than 50 hours trying to
figure out what was wrong. While out of town I discovered this
newsgroup, and spent more hours pouring over more than 5,000 posts. (I
really feel for those users, like my mother, age 89, who would not know
a newsgroup from a browser.)
From this group I learned:
1) The fix is to uninstall KB891711. I did, and everything returned to
normal on the next reboot.
But most questions and suggestions about the cause were never resolved:
2) The problem seems mostly to affect dial up connections (like mine);
but some cable connections have problems too.
3) The problem may be related to video cards or lack of them (like mine,
I think).
4) The problem may be related to other installed hardware and/or
software not yet identified.
5) The problem is not exclusive to IE, but also affects Netscape and
Firefox machines (like mine).
6) The update may be needed for Windows 98 or maybe not, depending on
whether you believe what Microsoft wrote or what its employees say.
7) Microsoft is aware of the problems and was close to being able to
duplicate them about three weeks ago.
One last thing I have definitely learned from this fiasco is not to
trust Microsoft Updates, no matter how “critical” they are labeled.
My bottom line question is whether there has been any solution yet?
Paul in San Francisco