This morning, I found a substantial group of Windows XP, Media, and Explorer
updates indicated as needing download in the tray. I duly ran these.
Immediately after rebooting, my machine (a Dell Dimension 5150) became
unstable. Upon booting into my desktop, an error message appeared indicating
that there was an error in the Windows Genuine Advantage Module. More
distressingly, I was from then on unable to run *any* programs.

I went into safe mode and rolled back the system 24 hours. I restarted and
my machine ran in a stable fashion. I then re-downloaded only the four
specific Windows XP patches, as I consider these to be the most crucial since
I don't use IE or Media. These are (KB936021), (KB938828), (KB921503), and
(KB938829). After downloading these and rebooting, the instability
immediately returned, with the same error message. FWIW, my Windows XP Pro is
indisputably genuine (it came from Dell with the machine, over a year ago), I
have not changed my machine configuration an iota. Something in one of these
four patches seems to be causing a serious issue.

This has caused me a good deal of stress (my first reaction was, sorry to
say, to yell at my daughter, who had gone onto my machine subsequent to patch
installation without letting me know). Is anyone able to tell me how these
patches may be safely added? Right now, I have instructed Windows Update not
to download them, but that leaves several vulnerabilities, which I dislike. I
have not tried to isolate which patch is at fault (as I don't like repeatedly
rolling back the system). Thanks in advance.

Edward

Edward Ripley-Duggan wrote:

> This morning, I found a substantial group of Windows XP, Media, and Explorer
> updates indicated as needing download in the tray. I duly ran these.
> Immediately after rebooting, my machine (a Dell Dimension 5150) became
> unstable. Upon booting into my desktop, an error message appeared indicating
> that there was an error in the Windows Genuine Advantage Module. More
> distressingly, I was from then on unable to run *any* programs.
>
> I went into safe mode and rolled back the system 24 hours. I restarted and
> my machine ran in a stable fashion. I then re-downloaded only the four
> specific Windows XP patches, as I consider these to be the most crucial since
> I don't use IE or Media. These are (KB936021), (KB938828), (KB921503), and
> (KB938829). After downloading these and rebooting, the instability
> immediately returned, with the same error message. FWIW, my Windows XP Pro is
> indisputably genuine (it came from Dell with the machine, over a year ago), I
> have not changed my machine configuration an iota. Something in one of these
> four patches seems to be causing a serious issue.
>
> This has caused me a good deal of stress (my first reaction was, sorry to
> say, to yell at my daughter, who had gone onto my machine subsequent to patch
> installation without letting me know). Is anyone able to tell me how these
> patches may be safely added? Right now, I have instructed Windows Update not
> to download them, but that leaves several vulnerabilities, which I dislike. I
> have not tried to isolate which patch is at fault (as I don't like repeatedly
> rolling back the system). Thanks in advance.
>
> Edward

Why be the first? The vulnerabilities have existed for some time before
the patches were written and issued. Waiting one or two more days will
not matter much...let someone else be the first to discover the problems.

"Edward Ripley-Duggan" <EdwardRipleyDuggan@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
in message news:F1C2982D-9806-4239-BEC4-31688FD1EAE1@microsoft.com...
> This morning, I found a substantial group of Windows XP, Media, and
> Explorer
> updates indicated as needing download in the tray. I duly ran these.
> Immediately after rebooting, my machine (a Dell Dimension 5150) became
> unstable. Upon booting into my desktop, an error message appeared
> indicating
> that there was an error in the Windows Genuine Advantage Module. More
> distressingly, I was from then on unable to run *any* programs.
>
> I went into safe mode and rolled back the system 24 hours. I restarted and
> my machine ran in a stable fashion. I then re-downloaded only the four
> specific Windows XP patches, as I consider these to be the most crucial
> since
> I don't use IE or Media. These are (KB936021), (KB938828), (KB921503), and
> (KB938829). After downloading these and rebooting, the instability
> immediately returned, with the same error message. FWIW, my Windows XP Pro
> is
> indisputably genuine (it came from Dell with the machine, over a year
> ago), I
> have not changed my machine configuration an iota. Something in one of
> these
> four patches seems to be causing a serious issue.
>
> This has caused me a good deal of stress (my first reaction was, sorry to
> say, to yell at my daughter, who had gone onto my machine subsequent to
> patch
> installation without letting me know). Is anyone able to tell me how these
> patches may be safely added? Right now, I have instructed Windows Update
> not
> to download them, but that leaves several vulnerabilities, which I
> dislike. I
> have not tried to isolate which patch is at fault (as I don't like
> repeatedly
> rolling back the system). Thanks in advance.
>
> Edward



The place to get help and advice from security etc 'update' experts is below
and not here in xp.general.

news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsof....windowsupdate

Good luck
Antioch

Thanks for the responses. As noted in my post, I was able to roll back in
safe mode. Today, I installed the four Windows XP updates one by one. I
identified KB921503 as the culprit (on my system).

I don't have updates set to automatic, just notification. Still, I do
normally update promptly, but the idea of waiting a week sounds like good
sense, after this. I've not had problems before, but that sounds like just
dumb luck, based on some of what I've read.

So far, so good...

"Rzpogi" wrote:

> try pressing f5 or f8 when booting after bios then select "last known good
> configuration"
> or reinstall windows
>
> "Edward Ripley-Duggan" wrote:
>
> > This morning, I found a substantial group of Windows XP, Media, and Explorer
> > updates indicated as needing download in the tray. I duly ran these.
> > Immediately after rebooting, my machine (a Dell Dimension 5150) became
> > unstable. Upon booting into my desktop, an error message appeared indicating
> > that there was an error in the Windows Genuine Advantage Module. More
> > distressingly, I was from then on unable to run *any* programs.
> >
> > I went into safe mode and rolled back the system 24 hours. I restarted and
> > my machine ran in a stable fashion. I then re-downloaded only the four
> > specific Windows XP patches, as I consider these to be the most crucial since
> > I don't use IE or Media. These are (KB936021), (KB938828), (KB921503), and
> > (KB938829). After downloading these and rebooting, the instability
> > immediately returned, with the same error message. FWIW, my Windows XP Pro is
> > indisputably genuine (it came from Dell with the machine, over a year ago), I
> > have not changed my machine configuration an iota. Something in one of these
> > four patches seems to be causing a serious issue.
> >
> > This has caused me a good deal of stress (my first reaction was, sorry to
> > say, to yell at my daughter, who had gone onto my machine subsequent to patch
> > installation without letting me know). Is anyone able to tell me how these
> > patches may be safely added? Right now, I have instructed Windows Update not
> > to download them, but that leaves several vulnerabilities, which I dislike. I
> > have not tried to isolate which patch is at fault (as I don't like repeatedly
> > rolling back the system). Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Edward

try pressing f5 or f8 when booting after bios then select "last known good
configuration"
or reinstall windows

"Edward Ripley-Duggan" wrote:

> This morning, I found a substantial group of Windows XP, Media, and Explorer
> updates indicated as needing download in the tray. I duly ran these.
> Immediately after rebooting, my machine (a Dell Dimension 5150) became
> unstable. Upon booting into my desktop, an error message appeared indicating
> that there was an error in the Windows Genuine Advantage Module. More
> distressingly, I was from then on unable to run *any* programs.
>
> I went into safe mode and rolled back the system 24 hours. I restarted and
> my machine ran in a stable fashion. I then re-downloaded only the four
> specific Windows XP patches, as I consider these to be the most crucial since
> I don't use IE or Media. These are (KB936021), (KB938828), (KB921503), and
> (KB938829). After downloading these and rebooting, the instability
> immediately returned, with the same error message. FWIW, my Windows XP Pro is
> indisputably genuine (it came from Dell with the machine, over a year ago), I
> have not changed my machine configuration an iota. Something in one of these
> four patches seems to be causing a serious issue.
>
> This has caused me a good deal of stress (my first reaction was, sorry to
> say, to yell at my daughter, who had gone onto my machine subsequent to patch
> installation without letting me know). Is anyone able to tell me how these
> patches may be safely added? Right now, I have instructed Windows Update not
> to download them, but that leaves several vulnerabilities, which I dislike. I
> have not tried to isolate which patch is at fault (as I don't like repeatedly
> rolling back the system). Thanks in advance.
>
> Edward