What is this Software Distribution Service 2.0?

**rik** · April 26th, 2006, 14:23 PM

Which problem exactly?

**TIDE-HSV** · April 26th, 2006, 15:12 PM

referred to is the vicious circle problem. The same thing is happening to me. When I restore to a point before SDS 2.0 came in, the problems go away. When the machine updates itself, they're back. In my case, the video defaults to the lowest color and resolution and won't let itself be corrected (WinXP offers to correct it automatically, but nothing happens). In addition, lines of text in the word processor become solid black lines and the machine slows to a crawl. Going back to manual update may not be the complete answer - it still leaves open the question of trying to ascertain exactly which element of the update is causing the problem - maybe we'll get lucky and it'll be obvious...

**wumply** · April 26th, 2006, 15:33 PM

I'VE A QUESTION Why is it that a lot of people have problems with SDS 2.0 and, using XPSP2, I've never had any problem with SDS 2.0 or updates from MS or with using System Restore? And I suspect I'm far from the only one who has been SDS-problem free

I can make some vague guesses as to the answer but I would love to have others' take on my question.

**TIDE-HSV** · April 26th, 2006, 16:04 PM

In our two LANs, all machines have had the update, and SDS, and only one has trouble digesting it...

**TIDE-HSV** · April 26th, 2006, 20:04 PM

It does appear to be the verclsid.exe file. As long as I keep it off the problem machine, everything runs fine. However, the HP file MS thinks it's interacting with is not on that machine. It appears to be something else. The MS page on the problem is truncated. It mentions Nvidia, but then doesn't continue. Doesn't help me, anyway, the machine has the generic Intel graphics accelerator...

**Teetotaler** · April 26th, 2006, 21:09 PM

This is how it began:

I was halfway through my auditing and attestation class; so you can imagine how bored I was. That's when the update window popped up on the bottom left corner of my machine. It said, "updates are available" and I said, "What the hell". So I downloaded the updates.

Days later, my computer's battery started to conflict with AC power. Now, my computer is shutting down frequently and refusing to come back on (aka being a b*tch). I just bought this b*tch in December, because my old b*tch was being a super b*tch.

I don't want my new b*tch to become a super b*tch. Please help me! My norton anti-virus is screwed up and the culprit is software distribution system 2.0. I have a HP Pavillion dv1000.

Now let me take a moment to damn Microsoft to a lifetime of hindquarter violations. Bill Gates' monopoly over computing is ruining the PC world! The lack of competition is giving rise to pieces of sh*t such as software distribution service 2.0. Hell, for all I know, SDS 2.0 could be a CIA monitoring system that solely tracks porn usage. I guess I won't be able to run for President of the United States of America. Politicians may already have enough incriminating evidence against me to thwart any political aspirations I may have or develop in the near future.

But I digress, I will kiss the feet of the man who posts a fix to this problem.

**Curio** · April 26th, 2006, 21:38 PM

The problem is most likely the verclsid problem if you take a look at the referenced MS page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918165 it will tell you how to add identifiers to the verclsid whitelist so it doesn't cause hangs. Unfortunately there are only a couple of known ones detailed - but yours may be among them.

Most notable are NVIDIA and HP drivers - well the shell extensions installed as part of the driver package to be more accurate.

**mshellhamer** · June 24th, 2006, 06:56 AM

Originally Posted by Teetotaler

. . . I downloaded the updates.

Days later, my computer's battery started to conflict with AC power. Now, my computer is shutting down frequently and refusing to come back on . . .

Same thing happened with my Dell E510. I replaced the battery and it ran better but still kept shutting down. I thought it was the motherboard or the fan not working right. After 3-4 days of trying to get help through Dell Chat, I finally called in and the guy had me use the restore option through safe mode. I remembered seeing an update message on the PC around 4 AM on Friday morning (6/16) as I was getting up for work. So I checked that date and saw this software distribution service 2.0 running on that day. Everything went to hell on that day so I thought that would be a good place to restore to. After that, I started doing a little researching and found this board. So, we'll see if restoring to before that little update and turning auto update off will keep my computer from randomly shutting down. I'll let you know.

**rik** · April 27th, 2006, 13:23 PM

Rename the "verclsid.exe" that is in the System32 folder to verclsid.old. Reboot. If that is what is causing the problem you are speaking of it should now be fixed. This is just a workaround tho. MS was supposed to release a patch for the patch that caused problems when it installed, so now they are repatching the patch.

I had more updates yesterday so that fix may already have been implemented.

**TIDE-HSV** · April 27th, 2006, 16:24 PM

the default on updates to "ask me." Unfortunately, once the updates are DLed, when you try to shut down Windows, you get the "install before shutting down" message. If you click on "no," the machine won't shut down. In my case, I've been unable to find the HP file involved, so it's definitely something else causing the conflict. I have a lot of leftover HP files on that machine from a former HP scanner, so I plan to go in and rub them out and see if that helps...

**rik** · April 27th, 2006, 17:24 PM

I wouldn't worry about the HP files as I've seen this on boxes with nothing more than the native XP\HP files.

**TIDE-HSV** · April 27th, 2006, 18:22 PM

I've already seen that. Although the conflict is definitely something coming in with the WinXP update of last week, my symptoms are not really in line with the problems MS delineates on their page. My video on this machine is stuck on lowest resolution/color and won't correct. Text lines in the word processor become solid black lines and the machine slows dramatically. None of these are symptoms noted by MS. Restoring behind last Wednesday's update cures all of them...

**rik** · April 28th, 2006, 00:27 AM

Sounds like you may have 2 different issues. If I'm not mistaken there was also a video driver update. ATM I don't remember if it was Intel or Nvidia, but how 'bout just trying to roll back the video driver rather than doing a restore?

**TIDE-HSV** · April 28th, 2006, 01:22 AM

That's exactly what I'll try. This afternoon, I realized that I'd still not changed the defalut from "notify me" to "disable automatic update." I went to the restroom, and it was already in the process of re-installing the updates before it shut down. I pulled the power cord. Even with the degraded video, I should be able to reach Settings and roll back the driver...

**Mikey** · April 28th, 2006, 05:25 AM

I decided to poke thru my xp pro directories and found the directory "E:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution." Check out the file "ReportingEvents.log" in Notepad (fullscreen).

Referring to the log, it seems that just before every instance that an update was actually installed (whether or not after a reboot, as some updates do not require a reboot) a new entry of "Software Distribution Service 2.0" would be created in System Restore. This shows the restore points were made before each update.

My last entry for "Software Distribution Service 2.0" in System Restore" is at 3:00:15 AM on Wednesday, April 26. Checking near the end of the log file, the closest entry to this is at 3:00:42 with the message "AutomaticUpdates - Installation successful and restart required for the following update: Update for Windows XP (KB900485)."

The next entry has the same time stamp, and says "Restart Required: To complete the installation of the following updates, the computer will be restarted within 5 minutes: - Update for Windows XP (KB900485)." There is one other "Restart Required" entry in the log like this. (( The one for Wednesday did start the computer on its own, & I remember it happening before. I thought I had some virus or whatever and was looking for the solution. Turns out it was Windows Update that did it. )) In these cases they must be critical updates, and the "SDS2.0" entry in System Restore was made before the boot because it was a forced restart. In all of the other cases the entry occurred just before the actual installation.

One odd thing I noticed is that in the entries prior to March 21, the times in the log file are one hour behind the times in System Restore. Apparently, Windows Update does not adjust for Daylight Saings Time!!

Hope this helps and my explanation is clear.