IBM laptop with reformatted HDD; fresh install
of W2K and SP4 was fine until I attempted to
update using Windows Update. Got the IE 6
SP1 upgrade OK but all subsequent upgrades
failed. Failure is always preceded (by 30 sec
or so) by notification that svchost.exe has
generated errors and will be shut down. This
apparently stops the download. After this
event, the connection icon shows vigorous
activity and refuses to disconnect. Other odd
symptoms included a distorted Control Panel
window and empty windows in other
applications. Right clicking the connection
icon in the tray to bring up the status or
disconnect results in nothing. The only way
out is to reboot. After restarting and
reestablishing an internet connection (this is
dialup) everything seems OK until I try to use
Windows Update again. This computer had
been infected with Blaster but the infection
had been fixed (4) and quarantined (1) by
Norton. Anyway, after that event the HDD was
reinitialized by reformatting all partitions and
changing two of them. Then the new install.
Have read everything I can find in the KB —
nothing seems to fit. I don’t think an infection
could survive a reformat, right? (In the second
install I had not reached the point of installing
Norton again, wanted to get all the updates
first — but went nowhere else on the web, so
thought risk of infection low.) Everything I have
found out so far seems to relate to
downloading updates but what do you do
when that is impossible?
Thanks, Reid