last Microsoft Update = evil
 

Being the dilligent computer user that I am I downloaded the last MS update to fix the security problem du jour. It installed fine, but I was working on some stuff (pron) so I didn't want to reboot to complete the installation. I turned off the pc later that night thinking every thing was fine. The next day when I turn the thing on, it keeps rebooting. My first thought was that I had somehow acquired the Blaster worm, as I had read that a typical symptom of the worm includes the PC periodically rebooting itself. However, my PC wasn't even logging into Windows (XP), so the worm was pretty much ruled out. I decided to log in into safemode, when I remembered the update I downloaded the night before. I went into add/remove programs and uninstalled the last update. Lo and behold, when I rebooted the PC, the thing worked perfectly.
Lesson learned: Don't install updates the same day they come out.

Lesson that should have been learned.

follow instructions.

reboot when it says reboot,

:) worked fine here.

Don't install the latest update - wait a few months until they correct the thousand and one problems the updates create.

Actually, it gives you the option of when to reboot. The fact that I didn't reboot right away shouldn't have interfered with the installation process. I didn't install anyother program, so there wasn't anything to mess with the changes made by the update.

I installed it the day it came out and had no problems, running XP Pro SP1.

Dunno what to say.

mrap, eh sorry i was being a jerk but yeah you should give it another try anyways and just follow up on it right away.

I mean at least you know how to fix it anyway.

For a few months, I wasn't able to download any *security* updates without having boot problems. Everytime I got an update and then rebooted, it would crash, and it would continue to crash until I went into Safe Mode and did a Restore. I finally reformatted and installed XP Pro again, and I immediately got every update available. I haven't had any problems since, so I don't have a clue what was messing things up before.

I'm back again.

I still have not been able to install the last few friggin patches. The latest error message I get is on a typically blue MS screen: "Autochkprogram not found - skipping autocheck" and then the damn thing reboots and the cycle keeps repeating itself.

I've tried to run the system file verification utility: sfc /scannow - it doesn't find any errors. I also tried manually copying the check disc file from my Win XP cd and replacing the one in the win32 folder with it, but still no results. Does anyone have any clue as to why this is happening?

updates work well on healthy systems, but if the system is not healthy it may not appear to have a problem,, then the update shows it up, the fault in that case is the system, not the update itself.

sounds like you may have a corrupted install, its hard to say what, use a system restore point if you left it on.

or a repair install will fix it up but require repatching

I thought that sfc /scannow was supposed to detect and correct any errors it found in the file system. And I doubt that I have a corrupted OS as everything else is working perfectly. The first blaster patch worked fine also, its this second one that is giving me problems. Oh well I might just wait until the new service pack is released before I install any new updates.

The only real solution is to use Windows ME.

well like i said, you can have a seemingly working system until something happens, problems lie dormant like a black widow in a shoe, doesn't mean its not there just because you haven't seen it.

sfc /scannow only does registered file integrity checking, nothing else.