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Windows Operating Systems Software Bug Upgrades

Vista SP1 Update Locks Out Some Users 410

Echostorm writes with word that Windows Vista SP1, which began rolling out via Automatic Update, has left some users' machines unbootable. The update loops forever on "Configuring updates: Stage 3 of 3 — 0% complete. Do not turn off your computer." "Shutting down"... restart and loop. Echostorm notes having found traces of what sounds like the same bug in early beta releases of SP1. It's unclear how many users are affected. So far there is no word on a fix from Microsoft.
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Vista SP1 Update Locks Out Some Users

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  • by kellyb9 ( 954229 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:08AM (#22435100)
    They actually DO beta test their software, right??????????
    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:12AM (#22435166)
      WE actually DO beta test their software, right??????????

      There, I fixed that for you.
    • by CrazyTalk ( 662055 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:14AM (#22435204)
      Actually, yes. In fact, those of us inside Microsoft (I'm a Vendor, and not on Vista team) have had access to SP1 for over a month.
    • by Fred_A ( 10934 ) <fred@ f r e dshome.org> on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:22AM (#22435320) Homepage

      They actually DO beta test their software, right??????????
      They did test it in .au and even did a survey to see what people thought of it.
      Oddly enough everybody thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      People like you are just retarded. When Apple, FireFox, whatever has a problem it gets played down. When the slightest hint of a problem comes up with MS it's bla bla bla. You guys can say what you want, but this is why I look at slashdot less and less. I'm interested in news not a bunch of anti-MS stories blown out of proportion. Also, just for the record, I've been using Vista for two months now and haven't had any issues. I really don't understand what is causing all the horror stories since the accou
      • by CSMatt ( 1175471 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:49AM (#22435702)
        You must be ne...

        Oh wait. Never mind.
      • by CrazedWalrus ( 901897 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:57AM (#22435830) Journal
        You sound like you'd be happier with Technocrat.net. Decidedly fewer trolls and 12 year old fanboiz there. I lurk, but don't really post much.Give it a shot.
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        Maybe... but when was the last Software update for anything Apple, or Firefox, that got you stuck in a reboot loop... Now how many times has this happened to people updating Windows?

        Exactly.
        • by rsmoody ( 791160 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @12:25PM (#22436242) Homepage Journal
          Just a few days ago with OS X 10.5.2. Several users were complaining of being stuck at the BDOS during boot, slow booting, etc. It seems that there are quite a few issues with 10.5.2, I myself have noticed apps starting much slower since the update. However, for the most part, it's very usable for me. Others however cannot even run some critical apps and has brought them to a complete halt. Not good at all. From what I have read and the trouble I had with using the Software Update version of the update, they needed to test more. I had to use the combo updater just to get the thing to install at all. Now, mod me over-rated.
        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by rrohbeck ( 944847 )
          >Now how many times has this happened to people updating Windows?

          Never.

          So far my systems always BSOD'd when an automatic update went wrong.

          Seriously, maybe they're just catching kernel errors, reboot and retry now.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by aldousd666 ( 640240 )
        I have personal horror stories with vista. I installed a new set of drivers from Dell, and it deactivated my copy of windows. Also, it randomly decides that it won't come back on after the screen blanks at idle. I did disable hibernation, and I have turned off all power management, but it still 'goes black' and still requires intermittent hard shutdown, power back ons. It's like a game, when I come in after the weekend, will I have to power it down, or won't I? I've yet to see if SP1 will fix it, I haven'
  • by KublaiKhan ( 522918 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:09AM (#22435110) Homepage Journal
    I know that they're said to have copied the concept of a GUI from apple (who, yes, stole it from PARC) but I didn't think Microsoft would follow the iBrick update also.
    • Now seriously (Score:2, Interesting)

      by El Lobo ( 994537 )
      THAT, my friends is what is different between Windows and Mak. Sure MakOz must test some combination of hardware/software but it will never be as huge as the combinations in which Windows is run.

      I say that because we have been Beta testing SP1 on 350 machines here at my university for some months now. Machines with different graphic cards, processors , extra hardware like scanners, different printers, graphic input tablets, and so on. That problem in our 350 machines was never detected.

      So, sure, that pr

  • ROFLMAO (Score:4, Informative)

    by Captain Splendid ( 673276 ) * <`capsplendid' `at' `gmail.com'> on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:09AM (#22435116) Homepage Journal
    About 10 minutes before this popped up, I got my first client call with this symptom.

    Ahhh, Microsoft. Thank you for all the work you throw my way!

    The only thing I can confirm so far is yep, Safe Mode don't work.
    • Re:ROFLMAO (Score:5, Funny)

      by BoomerSooner ( 308737 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:23AM (#22435336) Homepage Journal
      Has safe mode ever worked?
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Fred_A ( 10934 )

      The only thing I can confirm so far is yep, Safe Mode don't work.
      Oh I don't know, a machine stuck in an infinite loop sounds quite safe to me.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RonnyJ ( 651856 )
      Not to be cynical, but everything points to this being a fake post considering how horrendously wrong the summary is.

      This is a problem reported on a beta version, and so will likely be fixed in the final. The final is currently 'unreleased' to the public (although it's out there), and the beta version requires registry entries to install. In both cases you need admin rights on the machine. The summary is *completely* wrong in that SP1 is not available on Windows Update yet, and that's even assuming that the
  • by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:10AM (#22435126) Homepage
    So in other words, it IS an improvement!
  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:10AM (#22435130) Journal

    Q: Vista SP1 gets locks up the machines after update.

    A: [x] Fiction (wins a T-Shirt)
        [ ] Fact (truth but no T-Shirt to you bad boy.)

    • Windows Vista won't truly be ready until the first complete Service Pack is released. Fact (Fiction)

      their answers, not mine
      Recycling is hip!
  • They're lucky! When it finishes booting, it kicks your dog and sends kiddie porn to all the contacts in your address book!
    • by empaler ( 130732 )
      He speaks true! Butch is now whimpering in the corner, and my brother already wrote back requesting more!
  • by TrippTDF ( 513419 ) <hiland@g m a i l.com> on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:12AM (#22435160)
    this time, it's with "One Infinite Loop"
    • odd I was thinking there was a goto joke in there.

      Or a Vista counting problem. It couldn't figure out what comes after 0 so it couldn't move forward. After all if it takes 14 days to copy a gig of files one has to wonder about basic math inside of Vista.
  • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:12AM (#22435174)
    Eventually the loop will stop, and the installation will complete. But only if you BELIEVE!
    • I can't tell you how many times I used to allow broken loops to run, hoping and hoping and pleading that it would work. And sometimes it did.

      Computers don't really have that clunky feel anymore, and we're leaving the "hot-rod" modder age that was kinda akin to 60's and 70s muscle cars. Laptops are more like the newer less modable cars, so the OS is the only opportunity I get to have these fun experiences!

      yay
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by MBGMorden ( 803437 )
        The impatience of users annoys me too sometimes. In particular, I'm convinced that they believe that any prompt that appears will somehow physically injure them if left open for more than 3 seconds.

        ANYTHING that pops up with the words "Yes", "OK", "Next", or "Finish" gets clicked with lightning speed as if they were playing a game of whack-a-mole. I even had one instance where I was doing training, and the software program would give a confirmation number that the user was supposed to write down for their
    • More likely, eventually the loop will hit a buffer overflow and complete. This will be discovered by some guy who has the patience to sit it out, then announced by MS as a "suitable workaround" until "a patch can be introduced". The patch will never come, you'll be asked to just let it reboot for a few days until the installation completes.

      After all, we all know you never have to reinstall Windows, so what's a few days?
  • by plopez ( 54068 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:13AM (#22435186) Journal
    Seriously, sounds like a version issue. An SCM (Software Configuration Management). Seriously, I worked for smaller companies that were serious about versioning and regression testing. Is it my imagination or does MS seem more and more like a software organization that is out of control?
    • by porkThreeWays ( 895269 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:18AM (#22435252)
      Seriously guys, seriously.
    • by cliffski ( 65094 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:19AM (#22435274) Homepage
      more likely they are a software company rolling out tens of millions of copies of an O/S onto completely random hardware. I'd be amazed if there were not a few problems.
      • by BUL2294 ( 1081735 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:44AM (#22435642)
        Bullshit... The amount of hardware variability has declined over the past 15-odd years due to consolidation and Microsoft's insistence...

        * How many CPU makers are out there today? 2. (Transmeta is dead).
        * How many companies make chipsets (north/southbridges) today? 4(?)
        * GPU makers? 3.
        * BIOS vendors? 3(?)
        * Sound cards? 2 (Intel & Creative)
        * Expansion interfaces? 2 (PCI, PCI-Express)

        Now, look back to 1993-1995. How many no-name brand BIOSes caused problems? How many brands of VGA chipsets were there? CPU makers? (Think Intel, AMD, Cyrix, NexGen, C&T,...) How many expansion interfaces were there (ISA, VLB, PCI, MCA). How many brands had their own incompatible hardware, where Microsoft's HIMEM.SYS had special switches for (AST, Everex, IBM PS/2, etc.) All of these worked well with DOS/Win3.x and Win95.

        No, this is Microsoft's way of saying "we don't know what's wrong with Vista!"
        • 3 GPU makers? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Khyber ( 864651 ) <techkitsune@gmail.com> on Friday February 15, 2008 @12:31PM (#22436332) Homepage Journal
          What are you smoking? S3 is still around. Matrox as well. Then there's Intel, ATi, nVidia, then there's 3DLabs. I think Trident might be around, but only in a pure 2D platform. Cirrus Logic is also still in business, though whether or not they still manufacture GPUs is unknown to myself.
        • by AstroPHX ( 830253 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @12:58PM (#22436700)

          Your funny math makes my brain hurt.

          The number of vendors is a horrible measurement. Try variants on for size:

          How many CPU variants does one of the two manufacturers currently support? Try over 125. http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUResult.aspx?f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=& [amd.com] Oh, and that's just for the desktop.

          GPU? NVidia has 38 families of chipsets. At ~5 products for each chipset, you're over 190.

          What about all of the other hardware on a motherboard? Bluetooth, USB, Firewire, network drivers and modems are some of the largest contributers to OS development overhead/headache; tell me, have you ever tried to load up Feisty Ubuntu using a Broadcomm wireless device?!?

          By the way, this doesn't include all of the half-assed components people drop onto their computers like humping dog memory sticks or coffee warmers let alone all of the out of date drivers people have installed on their systems (have you checked your BIOS rev lately?).

          This isn't "Microsoft's way of saying 'we don't know what's wrong with Vista,'" it's Microsoft's way of saying, "we're trying our damnedest to clean this up, but you idiots keep pissing in the pool."

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by mgblst ( 80109 )
            If only all this hardware followed some sort of spec... surely that would make things easier.

            Ironic, one of the greatest abusers of standards today, being bitten on the ass because of non-standards compliance.
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by KillerBob ( 217953 )

          * How many CPU makers are out there today? 2. (Transmeta is dead).

          3 that try for the mainstream (Intel, AMD, VIA), but MS also makes pared down versions of XP that run on embedded platforms, usually with CPUs by IBM, Motorola, or Conexant, though the 3 major players all have offerings in this family, too.

          * How many companies make chipsets (north/southbridges) today? 4(?)

          In mainstream computing, it's pretty much NVidia or ATI these days. But there's also offerings out there from all of the CPU manufacturers

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      It's your imagination if they ever seemed like they were IN control.
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      Is it my imagination or does MS seem more and more like a software organization that is out of control?

      The problem is clearly your imagination. MS has a complete and total grasp on the situation. Their sales rep told me so.
    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot&worf,net> on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:31AM (#22435456)

      Seriously, sounds like a version issue. An SCM (Software Configuration Management). Seriously, I worked for smaller companies that were serious about versioning and regression testing. Is it my imagination or does MS seem more and more like a software organization that is out of control?


      It appears that each little division of Microsoft is their own little fiefdom. Take a common DLL - comctl32.dll (common controls). Windows ships with one version. Office ships with another version. Applications (using Visual Studio Redistributables) ship with a third version! Each has features that aren't in the others, so Windows apps get one look, Office another look, and 3rd party apps yet another look.

      In addition, the OS team forked the compiler they use from the development team. It makes sense in one aspect - all developers have a stable toolchain. However, if the dev team breaks something, instead of the Windows team making a big stink, people who use Visual Studio do.

      As far as anyone's concerned, Microsoft might as well be split up into separate companies - they more or less act that way anyhow. Code's taken from one team and forked, improvements aren't folded back in, etc.
    • Seriously, I worked for smaller companies that were serious about versioning and regression testing. Is it my imagination or does MS seem more and more like a software organization that is out of control?
      No, they have just come to the realization that they can save tons of money by outsourcing their QA to their customers.
  • by Megor1 ( 621918 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:13AM (#22435192) Homepage
    You can't download SP1 yet from Microsoft, in fact its not due out for weeks...
    • by nicklott ( 533496 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:35AM (#22435518)
      Who modded this Offtopic? The summary says "which began rolling out via Automatic Update", which is just wrong. Admittedly they might want to have caught this a touch earlier, but it's not public yet, nevermind auto updating people's machines. OSS FUD I say...
      • by nicklott ( 533496 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:44AM (#22435634)
        In fact, all the posts to the thread in the article were made after this article was posted to slashdot and by posters with a post count of 1. They talk about SP1 on auto-update (which the original post didn't) yet that can't possibly be true because that's not the case. And oh look, echostormfury is one of the posters, could he perchance be related to the Echostorm who posted the story? I smell bullshit...
        • In fact, all the posts to the thread in the article were made after this article was posted
          should have been

          In fact, all the posts to the thread in the article that mentioned auto update were made after this article was posted
    • by Creepy ( 93888 )
      It's the prep release for SP1 that came out a day or so ago, which I believe includes kernel updates. My ASUS S7v3 Vista laptop started rebooting constantly after installing this update, and I was forced to use the recovery feature that wipes the drive (most of my really important stuff is backed up, but not anything from the last week or so).

      I began downloading the update again to see if it is repeatable, or if it was due to other drivers on my system. If it's repeatable, I would say this is a very, very
  • by molex333 ( 1230136 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:15AM (#22435214) Homepage
    Microsoft will be releasing a worm to fix this problem early next week!
  • Brick?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by gardyloo ( 512791 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:18AM (#22435246)
    I'm sorry. I can't believe I read a summary about a computer problem without it being called "bricking". What the hell is wrong with the world?!?
    • Well, It's Not totally a brick... ThiS could be as good Time A time as you'LL get to Loosen up, Indulge your iNner geek, and Upgrade to something better by niXing Windows altogether...
    • I know... I couldnt find the right way to tag it ..

      fivesecondsuntilimproperuseofbrick ?
      countdowntononbrickevent

      we need a poll
  • Well. If you read the first forum post that person states that he used the Refresh RC... And my windows update doesn't tell me anything about any updates. If it's one of those preSP updates I can understand, but why doesn't you say so then...
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by soilheart ( 1081051 )
      Reading a little more of the forum confirms my theory about it mostly being the Refresh RC 2 ("Which should be the same as the RTM").
      I havn't found a single thread about someone saying anything about windows update.
  • by Radhruin ( 875377 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:29AM (#22435430)
    Something similar happened [slashdot.org] with the 10.4.11 update as well.
  • by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:31AM (#22435468)

    Echostorm writes with word that Windows Vista SP1, which began rolling out via Automatic Update, has left some users' machines unbootable.

    A forum post from last month about issues with the Vista SP1 Release Candidate (prerelease code, just to let Echostorm know). SP1 does not go out via auto updates until next month, and is only officially available to select system builders and beta testers now.

    It's unclear how many users are affected.

    I counted 5, including the guy who yanked his power cable and trashed his filesystem.

    So far there is no word on a fix from Microsoft.

    It might possibly be fixed in the RTM version of SP1. Who knows? Certainly not Echostorm, who is having a poopie because he hosed his own PC and is trying to drum up a whine-fest about it. Definitely not kdawson either, who posted this because, well, it's kdawson.

    This is taking slashvertisments to the preschool tantrum level.

  • by BroadbandBradley ( 237267 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:33AM (#22435496) Homepage
    you can download a disk image, boot from the disk, and start being productive. It's a proven fix that worked for me.

    Vista Repair Disk [kernel.org]

    I used it as soon as I started having problems with Vista on a new work computer and it's been smooth sailing ever since.
     
  • by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:40AM (#22435570) Journal
    of the situation years ago when a patch went that killed ones network connection. The solution from Microsoft? Download a new patch to correct the situation.

    Um, yeah.
  • "The year of Windows on the Desktop."

    Trolly, but true.
    • heck, the year windows detects my hardware without me having to keep all my CDs or at least the year I wouldn't have to use the recovery console every once in three months, will be the year on windows on the desktop.
  • I call Shenanigans (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15, 2008 @11:43AM (#22435628)
    Since Vista SP1 isn't even being deployed via Windows Update until next month, this whole story reeks of BS...
  • Vista SP1 isn't officially released yet, nor is it coming down by automatic updates.

    So... why is this story about unreleased software trashing people's systems that they're stupid enough to install software that isn't RTM code being considered news?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15, 2008 @12:01PM (#22435904)
    Thanks for confirming how rabidly anti-Microsoft this site is.

    Not only was the original article allowed to make it even though it was clearly incorrect. Since SP1 will not be available on Windows Update for at least a month. Most of the responders automatically piled on the typical anti-MS/Vista nonsens and even disagreed with posters trying to correct the article pointing to the article as proof.
  • ASUS P5N-E (Score:5, Informative)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @01:28PM (#22437094)
    It may well not be SP1.

    A very large number of owners of ASUS P5N-E motherboards are reporting the same issue simply with recent updates. It's quite likely the SP1 update is simply triggering the same issue.

    Here's a google search on the issue [google.com]. You'll notice a common thread is that P5N-E owners have the issue, users of other motherboards don't see it.

    It's been happening since mid January, from what I can gather, and I'm not finding any solutions to it yet.
  • Oh dear (Score:3, Informative)

    by Toreo asesino ( 951231 ) on Friday February 15, 2008 @03:56PM (#22439238) Journal

    Echostorm writes with word that Windows Vista SP1, which began rolling out via Automatic Update, has left some users' machines unbootable.


    Oh slashdot, how you have become the Fox News of the IT world. Fact: SP1 has not been on automatic update yet, and won't be for a couple of weeks yet.

    To echo what others have said, let's not let simple things like facts get in the way of good journalism.

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