Desk top PC in a continual cycle of downloading MS updates

[Lord Snooty]

My desktop PC, Windows XP seems to constantly have an MS update to download.

I get the little yellow shield icon in the system tray signifying updates are available, download the update, reboot, and hey presto another update is available, so download the update, reboot and hey presto......well you get the drift, and so it goes on everytime. This has been going on for weeks now, and of course if I don't download the update it will do it automatically and then reboot so I come back to the PC to find that it has been rebooted and I have to recover any files that were open at the time.

What is going on here?

 

[Fanum]

Use start menu, go to windows update option.........this takes you to the official update site and you can see WHAT it's trying to install, and tell it to bugger off if you want to.


It sounds to me like an update is trying to install but not completing fully.

You should be able to work out which one is causing the problem from that site, and either tell it to remember NOT to include that update, or there are other ways of doing it if necessary.

 

[Beemerman59]

My desktop PC, Windows XP seems to constantly have an MS update to download.

I get the little yellow shield icon in the system tray signifying updates are available, download the update, reboot, and hey presto another update is available, so download the update, reboot and hey presto......well you get the drift, and so it goes on everytime. This has been going on for weeks now, and of course if I don't download the update it will do it automatically and then reboot so I come back to the PC to find that it has been rebooted and I have to recover any files that were open at the time.

What is going on here?

I had the same on my laptop every time I shut it down - this running Windows 7. I have just turned "Auto Updates" off and forgotten about it.

 

[E. Buygum]

What Fanum said...I had this myself recently on XP. It turned out one of the updates wasn't completing. I had to remove this software completely and reinstalled it, after which it was fine. Can't for the life of me remember which module was causing the problem. Turning off updates could, of course, leave your PC vulnerable so not a good option.