Curious DNS problem after failed SP3 installation.
The purpose of this post is to record for posterity a strange problem that seemingly resulted from a failed installation of Service Pack 3; it was cured by a successful installation of SP3.
The patient, an Advent Laptop computer (about 2 years old, Intel Celeron processor) running Windows Media Center, presented as being unable to connect to the Internet. I was told that the problem had arisen after an attempt to install SP3 had crashed/failed. Add/remove programs showed SP3 installed but System Properties showed Service Pack 2! I ran System Restore to revert the settings back to before the failed installation but the problem remained.
The problem with internet connectivity turned out to be a DNS issue. The browser would load web pages if given their IP address but could not cope with URLs. Ipconfig showed that the IP address of the DNS server was correctly set to that of the router and I validated the router/ISP server with another computer. I tried various other tests but everything came down to DNS not working on this computer.
I tried to re-install TCP/IP but trying to run Add/Remove Windows Components failed with an error "Setup was unable to open the information file koc.inf ...." I searched the Internet and found one reference to somebody with the same symptoms http://www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Protocols/DNS/Q_23599766.html but no solution.
My solution was to re-install SP3 after first disabling all the non-Microsoft services, all startup programs and Bullguard Internet Security (version 6). The installation was without incident and both problems were cured as a result! But, incidentally, Bullguard Internet Security would not work when re-enabled.
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Alan B.,
I just wanted to thank you for your post, as it helped me with a customer today reporting a similiar problem. The ticket reported that the customer couldn't access any website after being added to our domain from a workgroup. After comparing his IP settings with other machines on the domain and seeing no differences, I checked the Event Viewer and noticed that the same day the ticket was called in, services began to fail that needed to get out to the Internet using DNS names. The user had been getting around the issue by using the IP addresses of sites to get what he needed from the Internet, however, he couldn't use the same technique to hit any Intranet sites. On top of that, when logging onto the system with his or anyone's domain credentials, the system would spit back that it couldn't log you onto domain X because the domain was no longer available.
Ready to give up, I called the customer and suggested a reimage, which he agreed to, but not liking the idea myself, I continued to research the issue on the web and ran across your post. In a last ditch effort, I checked the System Restore point from when the system first reported the issues and found that SP3 was installed, however, in the System Properties and Add/Remove, it didn't show up as being installed. I took the IP of our proxy server and adding it to IE, downloaded and installed the network verison of SP3 for XP and it fixed the issues (domain, web surfing, etc.).
I hope these notes will help someone else as well!
Sincerely,
E
- E, I'm glad my post helped you solve your problem. It sounds very much like the same problem I enountered. The only difference I can spot is that in my case System Properties indicated SP2 was installed but Add/Remove showed SP3 had been installed.
I just encountered this issue last week. My hope was that uninstalling SP3 would restore the DNS functionality, then I would be more careful about closing down applications prior-to and during the SP3 upgrade on the next attempt.
Unfortunately, the machine failed to boot following the SP3 uninstall. It would finish loading with a mouse-cursor on a black screen. Even in safe mode.
I've resorted to re-installing from CD again. Unfortunately, it's on old CD with no service-packs, so it'll take a while to bring it back up to snuff. I REALLY do appreciate your documentation of the issue, as I'll know to hold off on installing security software until after the service-packs are installed, as I typically install the security stuff right after the initiall OS install.
