Question about the upcoming standalone SHA-2 patch for Win7

Discussion in 'Windows 7' started by Thinkpad4, Feb 10, 2019.

  1. John Sutherland

    John Sutherland MDL Addicted

    Oct 15, 2014
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    I finally got a chance to try again this morning. Ran the stand-alone installer for KB4490628 (SSU) first and that installed no problem. Then I tried KB4474419 again and had the same result as before, failed to install and reverted on reboot. Then I ran sfc /scannow again and extracted the CBS.log file to Desktop. Third line from the bottom:

    2019-03-16 06:04:19, Info CSI 00000348 [SR] Repairing 0 components

    Any ideas what to try next?
     
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  2. abbodi1406

    abbodi1406 MDL KB0000001

    Feb 19, 2011
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    Are there any cabbed files inside CBS folder?
     
  3. John Sutherland

    John Sutherland MDL Addicted

    Oct 15, 2014
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    Yes, there are 5 CBSPersist files in total, three are very recent (one 2019/03/14 and two 2019/03/16), it looks like they coincide with the failed updates. The other two are from January (2019/01/10 and 2019/01/31). How do I use them or interpret them?
     
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  4. abbodi1406

    abbodi1406 MDL KB0000001

    Feb 19, 2011
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    It's not easy to interept

    you need proper text reader for big files, AkilPad or Notepad++
    search for ", error" without quotes
     
  5. John Sutherland

    John Sutherland MDL Addicted

    Oct 15, 2014
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    #25 John Sutherland, Mar 17, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2019
    That seemed like a good idea, until I opened the most recent CBSPersist file and realized there are over 1.2 million entries to search through. I quickly decided that I wasn't going to devote the rest of my life to searching through that file, so I decided upon another approach to the problem.

    I went online and found the following batch script to reset Windows Update.

    @echo OFF
    echo.
    echo =============================================
    echo Simple Script to Reset / Clear Windows Update
    echo.
    echo Created by "Vishal Gupta" for AskVG.com
    echo.
    echo Thanks to DTM for sharing the commands
    echo =============================================
    echo.
    PAUSE
    echo.
    attrib -h -r -s %windir%\system32\catroot2
    attrib -h -r -s %windir%\system32\catroot2\*.*
    echo Stopping Windows Update related services...
    echo ===========================================
    echo.
    net stop wuauserv
    net stop CryptSvc
    net stop BITS
    echo Done!
    echo.
    echo Renaming Windows Update related folders...
    echo ==========================================
    echo.
    ren %windir%\system32\catroot2 catroot2.old
    ren %windir%\SoftwareDistribution sold.old
    ren "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\application data\Microsoft\Network\downloader" downloader.old
    echo Done!
    echo.
    echo Starting Windows Update related services...
    echo ===========================================
    echo.
    net Start BITS
    net start CryptSvc
    net start wuauserv
    echo Done!
    echo.
    echo Task completed successfully...
    echo.
    PAUSE

    After running the script, I rebooted the system and ran Windows Update. To my surprise, there were a total seven updates listed, six in addition to KB4474419.
    KB3021917
    KB3068708
    KB3080149
    KB3133977
    KB3172605
    KB971033

    I immediately recognized the first three as Windows 7 telemetry updates (I have them hidden) and the last one as the Windows 7 activation/genuine patch (also hidden). Before doing anything, I'm going to investigate the other two, KB3133977 and KB3172605 to see what they're about. Will keep you posted.

    EDIT: I also should have recognized KB3172605 as the July 2016 Rollup. That's a biggie!
     
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  6. John Sutherland

    John Sutherland MDL Addicted

    Oct 15, 2014
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    I finally managed to get it installed, but what an ordeal. It's a good thing I keep three months of backup images available for Windows 7, because I ended up trying all of them, and it was the backup from Dec. 2018 that finally worked. I can only imagine that something went wrong during the January or February round of updates that prevented me from installing KB4474419, but haven't the slightest clue, since running sfc /scannow didn't report any corrupted/missing system files during that period.

    NOTE: After restoring the Dec. 2018 backup image, I used Windows Update to install every update except KB4474419. After rebooting and running sfc /scannow for a final check, I used the stand-alone installer from the Windows Update Catalog to install KB4474419. Maybe I should have done that in the first place.

    Moral of the story? You can never have too many backups!
     
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  7. f00l

    f00l MDL Novice

    Mar 12, 2015
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    #27 f00l, Mar 27, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2019
    Installing this update apparently causes bootmgr to be replaced with the default boot loader, removing Windows Loader. I got the "not genuine" message after a couple of reboots and couldn't just reinstall, had to fully uninstall and reinstall the loader with a different key. Not yet sure if it will stick or what the implications might be (why did it change?).
     
  8. f00l

    f00l MDL Novice

    Mar 12, 2015
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    It could be related to my single-partition setup: MBR with no boot/recovery/reserved partitions. All the boot files are in C:\.
    I installed the other updates and then KB4474419 on Tuesday and it seemed fine. Wednesday it suddenly wasn't activated anymore and C:\bootmgr had been restored to default.

    It's the second time this has happened since last year, previously I think it was after a rollup with a big update, I don't remember the KB#. It would fail to install and revert every time until I removed the Loader, then it installed fine and I just reactivated after. I configured the loader with "Preserve the boot code" after that in the hope of avoiding it happening again but it seems to have had little to no effect.
    Loader config: imgur.com/a/GYwB7d4

    I've since installed en_windows_7_ultimate_with_sp1_x64_dvd_u_677332.iso in a virtual machine, replicating the partitioning aspect, and went through the slow update process in batches of a few updates at a time until all updates were installed (avoiding telemetry/Windows 10 stuff). Manually checked for updates each time and rebooted twice after every set of updates to ensure changes applied after the reboot actually take.

    Activation was lost *three times* due to C:\bootmgr being restored to default:
    1. Four updates: KB4054530 KB3138612 KB4054518 KB4483187 (in that order, according to the update history). I'm suspicious of KB4054518 in particular.
    2. KB3133977 on its own (the dubious BitLocker one).
    3. KB4474419 on its own.

    Each time Windows Loader.exe shows "Status: Trial" with the OEM key still installed (probably "Status: Notification" if the VM was older). By the way this is without KB971033 which I deliberately didn't install in the VM.
    See: imgur.com/a/cVLX0UD

    Attempting to reinstall the Loader with the same parameters then results in an error:
    See: imgur.com/a/brHM3rm
    But pressing the Install button a second time works and it's activated again after rebooting.

    C:\bootmgr changes size every time it's regenerated by Windows Loader.exe: the one installed by the Loader at SP1 was 356KB, after the first reactivation it was 450KB. After second reactivation 344KB. After third reactivation 399KB. The one in my live system is 300KB. The difference between them is a fixed size blob (the SLIC stuff?) and varying kilobytes of zeroes at the end of the file.

    If you'd like to try this, the partitioning was done like so in the Windows installer:
    - Select all unallocated space, click New. Should create a small (reserved) and large partition.
    - Delete the small one and replace with new normal partition.
    - Delete the large one and extend the small one to fit the entire disk. Install into it.
     
  9. Thinkpad4

    Thinkpad4 MDL Novice

    Nov 13, 2017
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    Anyone else have any issues installing these patches on a x64 system?

    Thank you very much
     
  10. erpsterm35

    erpsterm35 MDL Expert

    May 27, 2013
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    nope. installed KB4474419 on my Win7 SP1 Pro machine back in mid-March and no problems encountered.
    and I am not using a windows loader or daz loader as the machine already has a SLIC 2.1 table in the BIOS
     
  11. Thinkpad4

    Thinkpad4 MDL Novice

    Nov 13, 2017
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    Great, thank you very much
     
  12. Enthousiast

    Enthousiast MDL Tester

    Oct 30, 2009
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