"Windows Update" Has Become Unusable Gradually During the Period January - August 2016, in Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium...
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It has been one year and four months since I have had looked at the Windows Update problem mentioned above. I did not have time to work on this. In the meantime, Microsoft stopped supporting Microsoft Windows Vista, which probably meant that they would not supply any more updates to this very fine and robust operating system, except may be one, which would fix the Windows Update problem. Since the Windows Update is broken, there is no way to update it using itself. Any fix, should it exist, has to be located, downloaded and manually installed. I am not aware of any such fix, so the Windows Update is still set to "never" check for any updates. Microsoft also stopped supporting the Microsoft Security Essentials, which is a virus protection program. I uninstalled it. The Windows Defender, however, was working well with regular updates.
A few days ago, the Windows Defender came back with an unlisted error message that it could not check for updates anymore. I clicked on the "Help" link that was supplied and ended up on the Microsoft Support Web page "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/918355/how-to-troubleshoot-definition-update-issues-for-windows-defender". Following the instructions given there, I was able to download the "updated definitions installer" file "mpas-fe.exe" which was released on 12/05/2017. I ran the program, and it did talk to the network for while and then it exited with no message at all. The Windows Defender was not updated. I ran it a couple of times more with various permissions, and that did not help. While I was tracing other issues that required a few reboots, the Windows Defender came back somehow "updated". It no longer asks for updates and promises to get them automatically. There is no manual "Check for updates" button anymore. This was fine as it did not seem to bother anything else. While tracing this somewhat surprising behavior, I ended up locating "Microsoft Security Essentials" for Microsoft Windows Vista in the Microsoft Support web pages as well. I downloaded this and installed with two somewhat odd results: It turned the broken Windows Update on and that tried to lock the machine up by holding the CPU at 100% load. I shut the Windows Update down again. In the meantime, the Microsoft Security Essentials finished installation successfully, and immediately declared itself useless proceeding to shut itself down. I uninstalled it again.
At this point, I noticed something somewhat odd about my network connection as well. However, to explain this, I need to describe my network connection:
I do have a dedicated DSL line which has only data service on it. This line is connected to a 2009 model Motorola Modem that has a wall transformer as its power supply and it is directly connected to the network card of the computer through the standard Cat 5 network cable which is very short in length. The wall transformer of the modem is plugged into an in-line switch which lets me disconnect the AC power line from the transformer, shutting the modem down. The network cable does not carry any power to the modem, so the computer is hard-disconnected from the "Network", that is to say not by a "software switch", when the power switch is off. This looks somewhat old-fashioned, but it is not any different from any other network architecture in terms of connections. What I will describe below can happen through any network connection.
The picture below shows the lower right side of my computer display when the power to the modem is off.
Note the red "X" over the Network connection icon (two display terminals one behind another) which means that there is no connection to the network. When the modem power is turned on and the modem is initialized, this icon changes, as shown below:
The filled blue circle indicates that there is a connection to the network. Clicking on this icon results in another pop-up window just above the task bar which is shown in the picture below:
Note that the access to the internet is indicated. Clicking on the line "Netwrk and Sharing Center", brings up another window:
All connections are normal as indicated, and everything works well. However, lately when the modem is turned on, the network icon has started to show something else more and more often:
Note that there is neither a "blue-filled circle" or "red X" over the network connections icon. Clicking on the icon now brings up:
Note that the "Access" is "Local Only", but the computer is actually "connected" to something like the "network" as it will reach the web pages one looks for using "Mozilla", somewhat erratically. Clicking on the "Network and Sharing Center" line now brings up:
As one clearly sees, the computer is "connected" to the "Network", but the "Network" "is not" connected to the "Internet", in the usual sense. It actually is connected in an "odd" way. Clicking on the red-X in this connection diagram now brings the following window up:
The computer indicates that "Connections to webpages are currently being redirected to another webpage." Now, this is worse than just being "odd", as I am paying for the dedicated DSL line, and for the Internet service provider. Redirecting to another webpage is actually like "espionage". Should one click on the line "-> Click to open the web page", one of two things happen: It either runs a module on one's default web browser (Mozilla Firefox in my case) in the background, but it does not bring a display up, or it goes to the web page which is always:
This the somewhat unbelievable situation as my internet service provider is AT and T, not Microsoft, and logging into the Microsoft web page does not change anything, as well expected.
Should one click-close this web page and exit the Mozilla Firefox, the display disappears, but the Firefox module keeps running in the background with no indication. My next reply message shows this as there can be only 9 pictures in one message in this forum...
-- Yekta
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The "Task Manager" display shown below indicates that the "Firefox" plug-in is still running after Mozilla Firefox display exits. This is also the case when clicking on the line "-> Click to open the webpage" in my previous message above leads to no display, but a running Firefox plug-in module in the background:
What is happening here is not "technology dependent", that is to say it has nothing to do with my old, but perfectly working modem or perfectly functional DSL line. The computer is always connected to a "Network" (Fiber Optics, Dish, Cable modem, Wi-Fi, DSL, Network Router, even Bluetooth or Radio Amateur transmitter-receiver) and that always connects to the "Internet". This means that the "redirection" can happen anytime without the user's knowledge and this is almost always detrimental to the network performance and security. Mozilla Firefox somewhat tracks this, but not entirely, and it does not say anything about it. I am not sure whether Microsoft Edge does anything about it.
It is worthwhile to note that the computer lately almost always connects to the network correctly after a reboot, but it loses the connection subsequently, oscillating back and forth these two states of "connection" even during large file transfers, causing immense delays.
Needless to say, I am looking into this deeply...
-- Yekta
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The network connection remained erratic for the next few days. Sometimes, - mostly after a reboot, but not always - , the computer would make normal network connection with "Local and Internet" displayed when the modem has had been turned on, and other times it would not, with "Local only" displayed despite existing "Internet" connection. I made sure that everything on my computer remained unchanged so that all of the apparent changes were due to the hardware and software it was connecting to in the Internet Service Provider's facility. I decided to track the connection in real time to determine what was causing this erratic behavior.
The Motorola DSL modem has five, multi-color indicator lights ("annunciators"). From left to right, these are: 1) POWER: It glows in steady green light when the modem power supply operating within its specifications. It is off when the modem power is off, and it turns red when the modem is going through its "Reset" procedure. 2) ETHERNET: It indicates whether the connection from the Ethernet card in the computer to the modem is properly made. It glows in steady green light when the connection is made, and it blinks in green light when the computer is making an Ethernet request ("data sent"). It glows in steady red light should there be no connection. 3) DSL: It indicates the status of the DSL line connection from the modem to the Internet Service Provider. It is glows in steady red light when there is no connection, and it blinks in green light as the connection is being attempted. It glows in steady green light when the DSL line is properly initialized. 4) INTERNET: This one monitors the status of the Internet Protocol ("IP") address assignment either through Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet ("PPPoE") or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol ("DHCP"). It blinks in green light as the IP address assignment is in progress, and it glows in steady green light when the IP address assignment is successful. It glows in steady red light when the IP address assignment fails or when the assigned address disconnects. 5) ACTIVITY: It shows the status of the received data packets from the Internet. It blinks in green light as the data packets are received, and it remains off should there be no incoming data packets.
The time sequence of the modem indicator lights as the modem is manually turned on after the computer completely reboots from the "shut down" state for a normal Internet connection is: POWER: It briefly glows red, then it glows in steady green light. ETHERNET: It starts dark, then it blinks in green light until the initialization is complete. It then glows in green light, occasionally blinking in green light as Ethernet requests are made by my computer. DSL: It starts glowing red, then blinks in green light as the DSL line initializes. The light becomes steady green when the DSL line initialization is complete. INTERNET: It blinks in green light as the IP address assignment is in progress. It glows in steady green light when the IP address assignment is complete. ACTIVITY: It blinks in green light as the data packets are received. The network annunciator in the lower right corner of the computer screen shows the filled in "blue circle" over the "two display terminals" with "Local and Internet" connection correctly indicated.
The time sequence of the modem indicator lights as the modem is manually turned off then turned on after the computer completely reboots from the "shut down" state for an abnormal Internet connection is: POWER: It briefly glows red, then it glows in steady green light. ETHERNET: It starts dark, then it blinks in green light until the initialization is complete. It then glows in green light, occasionally blinking in green light as Ethernet requests are made by my computer. DSL: It starts glowing red, then blinks in green light as the DSL line initializes. The light becomes steady green when the DSL line initialization is complete. INTERNET: It blinks in green light as the IP address assignment is in progress. It then glows in red light for a while. It glows in steady green light after a while as if the IP address assignment is complete. ACTIVITY: It blinks in green light as the data packets are received. The network annunciator in the lower right corner of the computer screen shows nothing over the "two display terminals" with a "Local only" connection indicated, but the Internet is somehow connected.I looked into the "abnormal" network connection through the sequence "Control Panel => Network and Internet => View network status and tasks => Manage Network Connections". The connections were made through the "Teredo (Shipworm) Tunneling Pseudo Network Interface", "6TO4 Pseudo Network Interface" and "ISATAP Pseudo Network Interface" for Internet Protocol version 6 ("IPv6") network packets tunneling through an Internet Protocol version 4 ("IPv4") network. There is support in Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium for these tunneling procedures with IPv6 support listed as "Limited", but I have a DSL, dedicated line IPv4 network connection system and there is no reason why there should be a "Teredo" server at the other end of the line, nor there is any reason to contact a remote one to achieve the tunneling.
This situation lasted for a short while, then the system started making abnormal connections without the IPv6 support. This time it was through the IPv4, but it was not any obvious matter how that was accomplished. I was about to use the Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4 software to see what really was happening, then things got a little bit better especially after I had a telephone conversation with one of the AT&T network support personnel about another matter. She asked me why I was still using DSL when everyone else had switched to "better" connection systems. The reason why is that there is nothing better available in the area I live. AT&T Fiber Optic Network is not available in this area.
First, the INTERNET light on the modem stopped showing "red". The modem INTERNET connection now initialized by first blinking in green light then directly going to steady green light. The kind of connections that were made now depended on whether the modem was turned on right after a reboot after a complete shut down or whether the modem was turned off after a normal connection and then turned back on without shutting down and rebooting the computer. The connection was now always normal in the first case, and it was always abnormal in the latter case. This indicated that somehow a network identification process was being skipped over. Nothing had changed in my computer as far as I knew, but I decided to test this.
When the connection was abnormal, the sequence "Control Panel => Network and Internet => View network status and tasks => Manage Network Connections" shows:
A right click on the "Local Area Connection 3" and then selecting the displayed "Diagnose" option results in:
Note that Windows Vista does not think there is a problem, but that is not the case. It still shows the "red X" on the connection from the modem to the Internet in the "Network and Sharing Center" diagram. I do not know yet how it is "fooled" into thinking that. Now , clicking on the "Reset the network adapter "Local Area Connection 3" " yields:
which then displays:
And, now the sequence "Control Panel => Network and Internet => View network status and tasks => Manage Network Connections" shows:
And, the problem is fixed. In fact, I was confident enough that this would work very well, I shut the modem down in the middle of typing this message, and I went through the procedure. The network reconnected with the annunciator showing the filled blue circle over the two display terminals, and I continued typing the message in with no loss. I did send the information to Microsoft.
I still do not know why the network identification is somehow skipped over when the modem is turned back on. I will look into it as I have time. For now, everything works again somewhat painlessly...
[P.S. I also encountered another problem during all of this. It is not directly related to computer hardware or software, but I do cook my own food and I do my own dishes by hand while I use and debug computers all the time, so I have thought I should put it here, as there may be some interest in it.
I always do my dishes by hand and without wearing dishwashing gloves. I do use "mild" detergents for this purpose, like "Palmolive", "Dawn", "Ajax"... Recently, the dishwashing detergent manufacturers stopped listing the ingredients of the detergents on the bottle labels ("Palmolive", "Ajax"). Instead, there is a warning label advising the user not to mix the detergent with Chlorine bleach to avoid "fumes". The manufacturers also have changed the composition of the detergents: For example, "Palmolive Original", I think, has only the original scent. The manufacturers also have added Sodium Hydroxide ("NaOH", or "Lye") as an ingredient into the detergents ("Dawn", "HDX"? which does not list the ingredients). The "Dawn Antibacterial" which clearly lists the ingredients on the detergent bottle, shows this.
I have always used sufficiently diluted Chlorine bleach to clean the sink and the dishes and to prevent any molds from developing anywhere. This method had caused no harm to my hands for many years. On the other hand, Sodium Hydroxide, although a very powerful "grease cutter", will cumulatively remove skin layers from one's hands thus thinning the skin continuously. Finally, the over-thinned skin will develop cracks that do not heal readily. An act of simply going to any toilet can cause infections that can be very, very dangerous.
I do now use tight fitting, Latex gloves while I do the dishes and while I handle these detergents, especially the industrial ones. Those ones may contain even higher concentrations of "Lye"... Note also that, the dishes must be rinsed under running water to remove all of the detergent residue as any remnant left on the dishes does get into the food and subsequently, it does get into the digestive system eventually ruining the sensitive lining of the stomach and the intestines. I have never rinsed the detergents and soap out by dipping the dishes into a sink full of water. That method never removes all of the detergent and it may even deposit more...]
-- Yekta
- Edited by Yekta_Gursel Wednesday, December 27, 2017 10:14 PM I had forgotten to mention the rinsing method.
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After the fixes I mentioned above, the computer became normal, more or less... I noticed that I had some Category 5 network cables mixed with Category 6 network cables in the system, and I decided to convert everything uniformly to Category 6 cabling.
The ethernet Category 5 cabling in the most commonly used TIA/EIA -568B connection standard consists of 4 loosely twisted, stranded wire pairs in an unshielded, plastic outer casing with 8 pin RJ-45 connectors (8P8C, 8 positions, 8 contacts, equally spaced, parallel, contact pins in the connector) at the ends of the cable. The twisted wire pairs are colored as follows: Pair 1: White striped blue wire twisted with Blue wire , Pair 2: White striped orange wire twisted with orange wire , Pair 3: White striped green wire twisted with green wire, and Pair 4: White striped brown wire twisted with brown wire.
The ethernet Category 6 cabling consists of 4 very tightly twisted, stranded wire pairs (100 Ohm impedance, balanced each pair) together with a non-conducting, strengthening strand in an unshielded, plastic outer casing with the same RJ-45 8P8C connectors at the ends of the cable. The pair numbering and the wire coloring are the same as those in Category 5 network cabling. The category 6 ethernet cable is rated for 250 MHz operation with maximum length of 55 meters.
The two pictures below show the signal definitions and wiring diagrams for Category 5 and Category 6 cables. The source for each of these pictures is indicated at the top of each picture:
As one can clearly see, the third twisted wire pair in TIA/EIA-568B wiring (white-striped green wire twisted with green wire) is separated in the connector only, that is to say, the two halves of the pair are not next to each other in the connectors only, causing an impedance change in the twisted wire pair at the connectors for about an inch (two mated connectors). This causes reflections from the joint to propagate backward down the cable, increasing the cable systematic noise, as well as causing additional attenuation.
I checked the "Wikipedia" entry for these cables, and they say:
"Ethernet compatible pin-outs "split" the third pair of RJ25 across two separate cable pairs, rendering that pair unusable by an analog phone. This was necessary to preserve the electrical properties of those pairs for Ethernet, which operates at much higher frequencies than analog telephony."
I found it very hard to believe that splitting a tightly twisted pair at the connector would make the cable work better in higher frequencies, as those pairs are driven with differential signals. There is a new ethernet cable standard (Category 6A) which will work at 500 MHz for a length of 100 meters and not surprisingly, it requires new connectors and new wiring schemes at the connectors to achieve this.
I now use all Category 6 cables, and I am looking into this oddly induced impedance change situation deeply as well, even though this last line is getting a bit repetitious...
-- Yekta
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The computer and its software has been working well with no indication of any problems since May 3, 2018. In the meantime, I have made a needed cable for my audio priority-multiplexer which lets me listen two sources of audio at the same time. One channel has priority, but its audio source has a lot of quiet passages. During these quiet passages, the multiplexer plays the second audio channel which is very much like continuous background music. The switching is accomplished flawlessly, with no annoying "clicks" or "pops".
The cable worked fine for a while. Then, the audio-multiplexer "low battery" light started to flicker. This was somewhat unexpected as the battery was relatively new, and I had not been using the multiplexer much. I opened up the battery compartment of the multiplexer, and found its Thunderbolt Magnum 9 V, Alkaline battery in a condition I had never seen before. The battery seemed to be blown apart without any fluid leaks or corrosion. Its voltage was 7.98 Volts. The multiplexer was kept in a very cool place, away from any heat sources, and its current consumption was normal. Its "on/off" switch was taped down in the "off" position during storage and nothing was connected to the multiplexer. See the picture of the battery below:
I do not know what caused this, and it happened sometime during April-mid May 2018, as far as I can tell. I am looking into it...
-- Yekta
