Vista: KB935807 Windows Update Woes - and XML Escape

Windows Update is great -- when it works. There have been a few slip-ups in recent months, and this is another one. What I got is basically the update failed to install. So, I resorted to installing the list of updates one - by - one. All worked except KB935807. FInally I downloaded the .msu from TechNet and installed it by double clicking on the file out of Windows Explorer. That worked, except for one thing - Windows Update keeps showing up in the Notification area, reporting that I need to install - you guessed it - KB935807!

There's some "stuff" appearing on the web about this, lots of people are getting it, it's a patch for the firewall, which service I keep disabled since my wireless router -- like most routers -- already has one built in. (Yikes - how many firewalls do we need, folks -- really?).

So far, this is the only "Fix" I've seen. I want to caution that I have not used this, nor do I know if it even works:

Follow the instructions below

1. Open an Administrator command prompt by right clicking on Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt and selecting "Run as Administrator" and clicking "Allow" for the elevation prompt

2. In the command prompt, type the command below

a. fsutil resource setautoreset true C:\

Note: This assumes that C: is the drive in which Vista is installed. If it is installed on another drive like D: please change the drive letter appropriately

3. Reboot the machine

4. After reboot, please try to install the updates again and let me know if that resolves the issue.

If that doesnt work also try to clear the Softwaredistrobution [sic].

1. Open a command prompt with administrator acess.

2. type net stop wuauserv

3. type start %windir%

4. Delete Softwaredistrobution folder

5. Go back to your command prompt and type net start wuauserv

6. Do windows updates and see if the issue has not been resolved.

I am not going to rail about this one except to say that if you are doing something that is going to affect millions of users, wouldn't it be a good idea to test it thoroughly? If you have some info on this, feel free to post a comment.

From the "Did you know that..." Department:

Often you need to provide the XML-Safe entities for markup that is included in a web.config element (such as appSettings, "value" attribute). You could always do 5 Replaces, but there is an easier way:

In System.Security namespace the SecurityElement class has an Escape method that handles this:

The following table shows the invalid XML characters and their escaped equivalents.

Invalid XML Character	Replaced With
<	"& lt;"
>	"& gt;"
"	& quot;
'	"& apos;"
&	"& amp;"

(I've put some spaces in my "Replace With" entries. I hope the reader is smart enough to understand why!)