Grabbing Windows Updates prior to reinstalling XP?

Corvus

Update, looks like I'm going to be stuck with doing a reinstall of XP. I know there some method to grab Service Pack 2 (my copy of XP includes SP1) and other updates prior to reinstalling, but could anyone give me some advice?


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Hi folks, writing this from a different computer than normal as my Network Connections seem to have vanished. When I open up Network connections in Control Panel, my connections are no longer there, and I can't make a new one, despite Device Manager telling me my wireless adapter is functioning fine. System restore has not fixed the problem with multiple different restore points, and all the relevant services *seem* to be turned on from the MS Support Center articles I've worked through. Nothing seems to be working though.

This is in XP Pro.


Help?

amateurhour

are your wireless adapter and network adapter disabled?

Corvus

amateurhour wrote: »

are your wireless adapter and network adapter disabled?

Nope. Both are enabled and working fine according to Device Manager.

amateurhour

have you gone into your system tab under control panel and checked out your device manager to make sure everything is there, and done a driver update?

PirateJon

1) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/825826/en-us

2) uninstall everything from device manager, reboot, and let plug-n-pray go to work.

Corvus

PirateJon wrote: »

1) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/825826/en-us

2) uninstall everything from device manager, reboot, and let plug-n-pray go to work.

Thats actually the support article I was working with, and nothing in there has fixed it. Nor has uninstalling the adapter from device manager and rebooting.

When I tried running IP Config in command prompt, I got a "you cannot make changes to Wireless Connection 3 while its media is disconnected"

To which I say, bwuh? O_o

Corvus

This is very strange, when I plug directly into the cable modem with a wired ethernet card, I can connect to the net just fine, though my network connection is still invisible. Both my wired and wireless adapters are working fine according to Device Manager, and I've followed every step in the support article Pirate listed above. At this point I'm wondering if its a virus or if I should just go ahead and reformat and reinstall XP. The amount of time I've spent trying to fix this is already more than what it would have taken me to reinstall.


Any other ideas?

Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud

Did you plug in and/or change the MAC address?
If the wi-fi is set to not be recognized unless manually inputted, that could be the problem.

PirateJon

3rd party wireless software installed? I know cisco and intel have their own software, maybe uninstall that and let windows controll the wireless.


other than that dude, I dunno.

Corvus

PirateJon wrote: »

3rd party wireless software installed? I know cisco and intel have their own software, maybe uninstall that and let windows controll the wireless.


other than that dude, I dunno.

In this case it was Linksys, but the presence or absence of the software made no difference.

OP updated with a new question.

amateurhour

I would install it as is, and just spend the afternoon letting it validate and get sp2 and the updates on it's own, rather than trying to load from a master file. You've got sp2, then about a hundred updates since then. That's just my opinion though. I'm kind of OCD when it comes to the reinstalls so I like to set aside half a day and just take my time, do the auto updates, then do windows update to search hardware and other software (office, IE, etc.)

seasleepy

I've had decent luck with nLite and RyanVM in the past. (It looks like at the moment, you'll need to download the Post-SP2 update pack, as well as an update for that from their forums.) There's a little guide on the RyanVM site on how to put it all together.
Alternatively (and something I haven't tried myself), use nLite and Windows Updates Downloader (which downloads directly from MS). You would add the downloaded patches in the "Hotfixes and Update Packs" window in nLite, in place of the RyanVM stuff.

In both of those cases, you can use nLite to slipstream SP2 for you.


If you don't want to burn a new Windows CD, you could copy SP2 and Autopatcher to a USB drive (last version of Autopatcher is from August though, so you won't be *entirely* up-to-date), and then just install your old version of Windows, with it unplugged from the network until you finish those updates.

japan

Just FYI, Autopatcher got taken down by Microsoft not long ago, so it can't be downloaded from the main site anymore. There's probably a few torrents still floating around though.

yotes

Here's an alternative to Autopatcher, one that I have much love for.

Corvus

Thanks for the replies guys. Downloaded SP 2 with the link provided, and I'm going to see about using the program Yotes linked for the rest of the updates. I guess this can be considered solved.