Tag Archives: windows updates

SmoothWall – Allowing Windows Updates and Windows Activation

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KB ID 0000441 

Problem

I’ve had fun this week installing a new virtual environment for a client with a SmoothWall firewall. It took a call to SmoothWall support for me to get Windows updates to work, then after activating a few 2008 R2 servers via phone, I was motivated to get online activation running as well.

Windows Activation Error – (We are being blocked by the SmoothWall Proxy).

A problem occurred when Windows tried to activate. Error Code 0x8004FE33

Windows Update Error – (We are being blocked by the SmoothWall Proxy).

A error occurred while checking for new updates for your computer Code 80072EFD

Solution

1. Connect to the web management console of the SmoothWall. Select Guardian > User defined categories.

2. Select the “User Defined Categories” tab.

3. Give the Category a name > Set Filter type to “Content and URL filtering” > Copy and paste in the domains listed below > Then click “Add”.

Domains Required for Windows Update

[box]

windowsupdate.microsoft.com
update.microsoft.com
c.microsoft.com
download.windowsupdate.com
genuine.microsoft.com

[/box]

Domains Required for Windows Activation

[box]

sls.microsoft.com
wer.microsoft.com
connect.microsoft.com
go.microsoft.com
sls.microsoft.com
crl.microsoft.com
microsoft.com

[/box]

Note: These are the top level domains.

4. Select the “Filters” tab > Give it a name > Set the filter type to “Content and URL filtering” > Expand “Good” content > Tick “Software Updates”.

5. Scroll down and expand “User Defined” > Locate the user defined category you created in step 3 and tick it > Click Add.

6. Select the Policy tab > Groups = All groups > Change the filter to the one you created in step 4 > Time period = Always >Action = Allow > Tick “Enabled” > Add.

7. From the menu select Guardian > Authentication > Settings.

8. Scroll down to the “Do not require authentication for these domains….” section > Paste in the domains you also pasted in in step 3 > Click “Save and Restart”.

 

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

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Windows XP Service Pack 3 Hangs on “Performing cleanup”

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KB ID 0000364

Problem

Saw this a while ago, and just thought it was a “One Off”. Then on a visit to a client yesterday I saw it on both machines I was working on.

Solution

This might scare you, but you need to kill the update, don’t panic at this stage SP3 is already on.

Update 05/04/11: Before continuing please read the feedback below. Ive never personally seen any adverse effects from doing this and I’ve rolled out a few thousand service packs.

1. Right click your task bar and select “Task Manager”.

2. On the applications tab > Select the Software Update Installation Wizard > Click End Task > Accept any warnings etc.

3. Reboot the PC > SP3 installation will recover and finish, ignore any errors or warnings just let it boot up and you will be at SP3, at this point finish the good work by going to windows update and getting all the post SP3 updates.

Feedback from Patrick Wright (05/04/11)

I am sending you a message concerning your advice on the Windows XP SP3 install “hanging” at “Performing Cleanup…”.  The advice you give is to end the installation task at this point and reboot the computer.

The truth of the matter is that during the “Performing Cleanup…” step, there is indeed quite a bit of activity and updating going on.  I’ve had this step take as long as 6 hours on slower machines on our network but it finishes successfully.

For testing purposes, I tried your solution on three training machines that were still running SP2 and ran into numerous issues after rebooting with getting several programs to install that require a minimum of SP3–Adobe Standard/Professional 10 is only one example and will refuse to install on all three of the test machines that I tried your suggested fix on.  It appears that even though Windows shows in system properties to be upgraded to SP3, it is not completely finished if you stopped the install prematurely by ending that task. 

I strongly advise to consider changing your solution to simply wait out the “Performing Cleanup…” task until it finishes.  It can take a while.  I’ve found one way to help the process along is to set the process for the updater to “high priority” in task manager.  This resulted in drastically faster install times when the installer seemed to “hang” at that part of the install.

 

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

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Windows Update Error 80072EFD

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KB ID 0000440 

Problem

While attempting to run a Windows Update you see the following error.

Code 80072EFD Windows Update encountered an unknown error. Get help with this error.

Solution

Note: There seems to be a few causes of this error, but in my case it was the proxy server.

1. Assuming you have a proxy set in your web browser settings (Internet Options > Connections > LAN Settings > Set proxy settings accordingly). Note: Your proxy may be using a different port to the one shown.

2. To fix it you need to have “un-proxied” and access (without authentication) to the following addresses:

http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com http://update.microsoft.com http://c.microsoft.com http://download.windowsupdate.com http://genuine.microsoft.com

3. If this machine with the update problem has access to the internet (without going through the proxy) you can simply add these addresses as “Exeptions” by pressing the advanced button above.

4. If the proxy is the only machine with internet acess and you cannot do that, then you need to allow access in the settings on your proxy server.

5. Once done, updates should resume.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

SmoothWall – Allowing Windows Updates and Windows Activation