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On 09/04/2009 14:08, Grant Sewell wrote: > On Thu, 9 Apr 2009 10:49:30 +0100 > Grant Sewell wrote: > > >> Hi all, >> >> Well, today was the first instalment of Microsoft Windows Server >> terror at work. SBS 2008 - a routine set of "security" updates from >> Microsoft were applied last night. This morning, when I came into >> the office, the machine was stuck on "Configuring Updates - Stage 3 >> of 3 - 0%". >> >> Apparently this is a well known issue and has happened with a number >> of updates on a number of the Vista family of systems. >> >> By the look on some of their faces, I don't think they were too >> pleased with my "Well, I did recommend going for a Linux server" >> comments. >> >> *sigh* >> >> Back to trying to fix the bugger. >> >> Grant. >> > > And people wonder why us techy types like Linux or Unix systems. > > A Linux service fails to work after an update... what to do? Restart > the service and check the relevant logs to see what it says. Maybe even > have a poke through the service scripts to figure out what it is > actually doing when trying to start. One way or another, you can find > out what is failing and why, and since damn near everything has a conf > file in plain text, you can fix the problem. All without necessarily > affecting un-related services and without having to reboot. > > A Windows service fails to work after an update... what to do? Restart > the service... oh, can't do that it depends on something else which is > "stuck" in the "Starting" or "Stopping" state. Check the logs in > Event Viewer... great! Got plenty of information, but it's all written > in Hebrew! (Well, not literally, but it might as well be). Off to > Google to find out what these Event IDs mean... but it would seem they > mean nothing at all! They don't even exist! Ok, let's try > restarting the "stuck" services... oops, you can't forcibly start, stop > or restart a Windows service that is stuck like that... best solution so > far seems to be try and kill the relevant processes... but you can't do > that with TaskMan as it's rubbish, so give Proccess Explorer a try! > Yay! I can kill things properly now... but, uhoh... Services MMC still > says they're stuck. Closing and restarting Services MMC has no effect. > Still can't tell the services to restart either with the MMC snapin or > from the command line. > > Ok... let's try a System Restore... no restore points were created. > What? I was under the impression that Windows automatically made > restore points whenever an update was installed! Ok, full system > restore... > > Sheesh! > > Grant (who has had far too much coffee so far today and desperately > needs to go and get some lunch) > > So their total cost of ownership has gone up a whole lot more because their techie is spending all his time fixing something that on a *nix system would have probably have been fixed much quicker. I dunno, some people/companies seem to be of the mind set that good stuff goes good money and I guess this shows that in some cases that isn't true (at least where Microsoft software seems to apply). I don't think I've ever had as much hassle with Netware or Linux as I have had with Windows and I don't know diddly squat about Netware but still managed to fix a few problems on it with a bit of searching. Rob -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html