ASUS based Motherboards - Windows update can kill your computer

a reply to: Bedlam
There you go for a great answer. I am just a basement under the sheets flashlight home user.

I run Windows 7 for two reasons... My Nikon software that was bundled with my cameras... and an old Sharp laser printer that we got for free. They are both only supported for Windows. So, I keep the OS on an accessory drive.

I run Linux for everything else. It is far more stable, it runs better on multi-core machines, AND...

...it's free.

originally posted by: Bedlam
ASUS defaults UEFI protection to 'on'. And Windows 7 doesn't really support it. So it's not unheard of for this to occur, although it's generally not from a Windows Update run.

Don't say that, people will think you are being paid by Microsoft.

a reply to: Vroomfondel

ASUS implemented UEFI Secure Boot as a system default setting on boards which support it.

Windows 7 does not support UEFI Secure Boot. The install procedure for all older operating systems, on a modern motherboard, is to turn UEFI Secure Boot off in BIOS setup before installing. This applies to operating systems other than just Windows 7. A competent technician would know this and have already implemented it during OS install.

Turning off the Secure Boot option in the BIOS setup will allow normal booting, as per the following ASUS FAQ entry: www.asus.com...

Since it is so easy to bypass this, it is hardly Microsoft "forcing" anyone to upgrade. It is merely that new security features are being added to new OS's and hardware. You can't expect the old stuff to magically acquire new capability.

a reply to: ArMaP

You are correct regarding the entire paragraph, but the article I read did not have the entire paragraph in it. There was a link to it, however.

Resolving the issue by disabling secure boot is great, if your computer boots up. If it doesn't...

I have not found anything yet that indicates if using the mb jumper to reset the bios will resolve this or not.

originally posted by: 1984hasarrived
Yesterday I had a user whose computer Windows 8.1 restarted to do an update and when it rebooted it was a clean install.

No documents he had previously worked on had saved, and he said he was unable to avoid doing the update.

Got to love MicroSoft, eh?

Microsoft asks several times about continuing for all potentially data damaging operations. It is written into the setup code and cannot be bypassed unless a 'scripting' file is supplied and run by the installer.

I suspect that your user must have 'OK'd several prompts to get a fresh install, or possibly, they 'SYSPREP'd their PC (which re-initializes and writes a script file), or possibly the user "refreshed" their Windows, again answering "Yes" to multiple dialogs.

I wouldn't blame Microsoft. What you describe, cannot happen.

The original article does make it sound somewhat ominous. Seeing as how I was literally in the process of installing the updates when I saw the article...it kind of hit me with a bit more force than it probably should have. I stopped the update and used system recovery to a recent restore point and it was fine. I downloaded the updates a second time but did not select 3133977 and have had no problems as of yet.

originally posted by: vethumanbeing

originally posted by: Charizard
Well crap, I'm still on 7. I have auto updates turned off, but my computer FORCES me to install updates if I want to shut it down. It won't allow me to shutdown unless the updates are installed, which I read is a feature of Windows 7 that can't be disabled.

Any suggestions? Any way I can stop my computer from installing updates?

NOPE. I forestalled this for 8 months and the updates kept on rolling (turned off computer) DON"T TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER! (yes I did); turned back on 10 hours later and whatever was sleeping, awoke and continued to install Itself to completion (Windows 10 is not that bad).

I'm sorry, i'm not very tech savy so I don't really understand. Are you telling me to never turn off my computer? That's just not feasible. Sometimes I'm forced to shut it down due to stormy weather, for example. I was wondering if there's anything I can do to have my computer not install whatever particular update it is that's causing the issue.

So maybe just *some* Windows detainees are to be moved from windows 7 to 10 via update drone 3133977?

Obama signed Executive Order 13567 back in 2011.

Nah..

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
a reply to: ArMaP

You are correct regarding the entire paragraph, but the article I read did not have the entire paragraph in it. There was a link to it, however.

Resolving the issue by disabling secure boot is great, if your computer boots up. If it doesn't...

I have not found anything yet that indicates if using the mb jumper to reset the bios will resolve this or not.

The MB jumper resets BIOS to system defaults, which in ASUS case, Secure Boot is enabled (default), so it won't fix anything. If someone had hidden the startup BIOS messages, it will default back to those messages being back on.

To get into UEFI setup on an ASUS PC, plug in a bootable USB thumb drive, power on the PC and press the "Del" key. (On some systems it is another key so watch the screen prompts).

If you don't have a bootable USB device, you can make one up on another PC. To minimize the time it takes to get a bootable flash drive, download Rufus which can format the flash drive and set up the boot files and download Fat Dog Linux .iso format file for the operating system to put on the flash drive (it is really small and UEFI compliant).

If you need assistance in creating the bootable flash drive with Rufus, have a look at Option 2 on the following page:
How To Make UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive The only difference is that you will be using the FatDogLinux .iso file instead of a Windows one.

originally posted by: madmac5150
I run Windows 7 for two reasons... My Nikon software that was bundled with my cameras... and an old Sharp laser printer that we got for free. They are both only supported for Windows. So, I keep the OS on an accessory drive.

I run Linux for everything else. It is far more stable, it runs better on multi-core machines, AND...

...it's free.

I use linux mint. I have an old printer that refuses to work with mint (I should buy a new one) but I no longer dual boot, instead I use virtual box with win 7 installed into it. Firing up win7 is just like opening another window, and it see's my printer. It also means win7 cannot phone home unless I allow it.

originally posted by: Charizard

originally posted by: vethumanbeing

originally posted by: Charizard
Well crap, I'm still on 7. I have auto updates turned off, but my computer FORCES me to install updates if I want to shut it down. It won't allow me to shutdown unless the updates are installed, which I read is a feature of Windows 7 that can't be disabled.

Any suggestions? Any way I can stop my computer from installing updates?

NOPE. I forestalled this for 8 months and the updates kept on rolling (turned off computer) DON"T TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER! (yes I did); turned back on 10 hours later and whatever was sleeping, awoke and continued to install Itself to completion (Windows 10 is not that bad).

I'm sorry, i'm not very tech savy so I don't really understand. Are you telling me to never turn off my computer? That's just not feasible. Sometimes I'm forced to shut it down due to stormy weather, for example. I was wondering if there's anything I can do to have my computer not install whatever particular update it is that's causing the issue.

Check the prior page; there are some suggestions as to how to do this.

originally posted by: VoidHawk

originally posted by: madmac5150
I run Windows 7 for two reasons... My Nikon software that was bundled with my cameras... and an old Sharp laser printer that we got for free. They are both only supported for Windows. So, I keep the OS on an accessory drive.

I run Linux for everything else. It is far more stable, it runs better on multi-core machines, AND...

...it's free.

I use linux mint. I have an old printer that refuses to work with mint (I should buy a new one) but I no longer dual boot, instead I use virtual box with win 7 installed into it. Firing up win7 is just like opening another window, and it see's my printer. It also means win7 cannot phone home unless I allow it.

My dual boot is easy. My Dell workstation lets me select my boot drive everytime I boot. I can keep my Windows and Linux drives separated on boot up... I have 1 common drive that is formatted in FAT32... Linux and Windows can share files on a FAT 32 drive...

originally posted by: madmac5150

originally posted by: VoidHawk

originally posted by: madmac5150
I run Windows 7 for two reasons... My Nikon software that was bundled with my cameras... and an old Sharp laser printer that we got for free. They are both only supported for Windows. So, I keep the OS on an accessory drive.

I run Linux for everything else. It is far more stable, it runs better on multi-core machines, AND...

...it's free.

I use linux mint. I have an old printer that refuses to work with mint (I should buy a new one) but I no longer dual boot, instead I use virtual box with win 7 installed into it. Firing up win7 is just like opening another window, and it see's my printer. It also means win7 cannot phone home unless I allow it.

My dual boot is easy. My Dell workstation lets me select my boot drive everytime I boot. I can keep my Windows and Linux drives separated on boot up... I have 1 common drive that is formatted in FAT32... Linux and Windows can share files on a FAT 32 drive...

Actually I lied, I do dual boot, just not with windows. F8 allows me to select which drive I boot too.

As for sharing a drive between windows and linux, I found mint would corrupt my old xp installation (fat 32), it would screw with the file permissions and xp would take about an hour to boot, I didn't get that problem with win7.

Have you tried virtual box? If not give it a go. I installed win7 into it.
Advantages are
1. You can clone a virtual os. That means if it gets corrupt or infected you simply delete it and fire up a clone.
2. You can copy it onto a stick and use it in any pc thats got virtual box installed.

originally posted by: Vroomfondel

originally posted by: ketsuko
Is this part of getting people to swap over to Win 10?

It's important for us as both our machines are ASUS. Thankfully, I turn off auto-update.

There is another article, I dont have a link to it atm, that suggests this is in fact an effort by Microsoft to force people to use Windows 10.

I totally agree, and ever since that blasted nag icon began begging me to upgrade to Windows 10, I knew they were working in the shadows to advance their agenda.

Because I never used to have any issues running win 7-64 until after that. I'm running an MSI mainboard, and since the windows 10 thing began, every time I update since then my system experiences blue screens and has to be restored to the former UN-updated files if I update anything.

I have even selectively updated only some updates, but after doing it, more blue screens.

I believe that Microsux has injected crash code into many of their updates for win 7 hoping people will get tired of the crashing and try windows 10 which I detest. It is nothing but a plagiarized version of something Apple makes.

I can clearly see that it is not only ASUS stuff affected. This is something that should be thoroughly investigated.

It happened to me a while back, you can system restore if you have the discs, or you can create a bootable system restore via thumb drive, it was a terrible pain in the ass, one that has made me an abhorrent windows user. (I was even ok with the original vista) but that was my last straw.

I only run windows 10 via Virtual machine. I have it on dual boot with linux just incase I have to use it for some retarded reason. Microsoft is nazi.

Asus is love, open source linux is life.

This is why I switched to linux mint about 3 years ago and never looked back. I only boot into windows for occasional gaming. Even still a lot of good games run under linux now thanks to steamOS.

All my word processing and engineering and software development programs run under linux. You never get these kinds of problems.

My cyberpower with a Asus board made for Windows 7 is now a boat anchor. This and the junk Xbox that you can't switch components has me moving away from Microsoft products permanatly.

Microsoft sucks

a reply to: Charizard

www.makeuseof.com... this should do the job, but be careful when editing the registry if you haven't before as editing the wrong entries or entering wrong data can cause more problems. It's fairly well shown in the how-to though. If you have Windows Ultimate another method is shown further down

a reply to: Vroomfondel

Perhaps a way for ATS to boost its numbers is to create a *hit list of updates that are bad for win 7 and perhaps other OS systems that MS are trying to stuff windows 10 on to.

It would best if this could be done with a dedicated forum or sub part of the computer form. I would suggest the mostly likely option would be a sticky in the computer forum.

whaddya reckon?