Windows Update Errors 0x800xxxxx

I had been encountering Update errors of all sorts and too many error code to even remember. It stop at 83% or before... But I finally found a solution.

You will never imagine how simple the solution is when you know what is wrong. Windows Update simply does not play nice with MS SQL Server... Yes, Microsoft very own! If you have some cryptic error 0x800xxxxxx, don't do the reset, try to disable you SQL first.

Try these step to disable the SQL Server.

1. Run msconfig
2. Services. Uncheck all service with SQL....
3. Install the update, reboot etc
4. Run msconfig again.
5. Select Normal Startup.

That will be all needed to put you to the latest Windows 10 RS3.

Missing Email Inbox in Outlook 2013

Ever set up a new IMAP account on Outlook and suddenly find that no matter how you set it up, with all the configurations right, you can't seem to fetch your Inbox. Well, if you are getting your Sent or Outbox, then you are right onto this problem.

Its related to 2 of the Microsoft Update in fact, KB2837618 or KB2837643. The long version is here:

http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/email/email-troubleshooting/imap-issues-affecting-outlook-2013-and-office-365-functionality

But to keep this short, all you need to do is to disable a feature call show only subscribed folders.
To access this,

1. Open the Folder tab. Look for "IMAP Folders". Click it.
2. You should see the dialog below. Uncheck it!

Well, I wondered if Microsoft asked anyone's opinion when implementing this, but this has cause me to loose some hair and a few hours of sleep. I hope I have some some of yours.

Let me know if this is helpful!

SFC failed May 2015 - utc.app.json telemetry.ASM-WindowsDefault.json

After some Windows Update in May / Jun, you may find that your Windows 8.1 SFC /SCANNOW suddenly failed with some corrupted files. If you followed some instruction to check the logs, you will notice that there are 2 files mentioned.

• telemetry.ASM-WindowsDefault.json 
• utc.app.json

Well, the guys at Microsoft had did it again and broken their own tool. Luckily there is a way to fix this. Well, there are 2 exactly, the hard way or easy way. I would link you to the easy way instead.

The hard way is to manually do what the easy way did, line by line on console.

Tech Cookbook SFC Fix:
http://thetechcookbook.com/windows-7-update-kb3022345-causing-corrupt-files/

Kali KEYEXPIRED 1425567400 KEYEXPIRED 1425567400 KEYEXPIRED 1425567400

While updating Kali Linux, I got a rather strange message:
KEYEXPIRED 1425567400 KEYEXPIRED 1425567400 KEYEXPIRED 1425567400

Somehow that indicate that the keys used for GPG is likely to be expired. 

I dig a bit and found that the way to update the keys is as follows:
apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 7D8D0BF6

Now your Kali should be updating normally again!
BTW, Kali v1.1.0a is out. Maybe its a good time to reinstall the latest version!

Manual Update for Kaspersky Product

Ever have an issue with the massive downloading of update from Kaspersky product? This is especially bad when you are stuck in a location where bandwidth is a concern since the update could well be over 100MB sometimes.

But little do people know that there is in fact a way to update Kaspersky offline and this makes a lot of senses if you have more than 1 PC requiring the same update. Today, let's take a look at a BETA product from Kaspersky themselves call Kaspersky Updater 2014 for Windows.

Link:
http://forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?showtopic=234108

This is quite a straight forward program. Just download the archive, extract it and run the updater. This is what you will see.

1. Select Applications. Choose the EXACT version you are using because the updates are different.

2. Select Settings. Choose whether you want just signatures or modules updates as well.

3.  Just Update it then.

This end the part the updater has to do. The rest is about configuring your Kaspersky product to take in the update. In general, this is the instructions, but may varies slightly from version to versions.

1. Open your product settings and look for Update.
2. There should be a update source option, select it and point it to the directory you downloaded the update from. It could be in temp under the updater and so on.
3. Update your product.

Hope this helps you guys!

Windows XP Extended Support Till 2019 Registry Hack

I am not the first to disclose this registry trick to change your Windows XP into Windows XP POS Edition. The purpose of doing so is that while all other desktop edition of Windows XP had been withdrawn from support, the POS (Point-of-sale) version is however still supported until 2019. This essentially give you extended support on your Windows XP.

HOWEVER, even if this trick works to give you updates until 2019, Microsoft will make some assumptions. For example, people will not be using it wo surf the web, read email, load Youtube of Facebook etc. Because this is a POS system, which is pretty much those dump terminal operated by sales in stores. So what does that mean? It mean you will not be FULLY protected anyway. IE will probably never be fixed. So, my advise is still to just ditch Windows XP and upgrade to Windows 7/8 as a long term solution.

Anyway, here is the simple hack. Put the following into a text file and save it as WinXP2019.reg :

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady]
"Installed"=dword:00000001

Double click this file to have Regedit execute it. That is all to it.

Kali Linux Slow Update

For those using Kali, you must had noticed how slow and painful it is to update the Linux. Unless you have a very fast internet, which will not be the case on a oil rig or the space shuttle. Just kidding about that. But its slow. That's a fact.

What I am going to show you here is a simple tweak and it will work much faster. And I am not talking about private or custom repository, which I strongly discourage as these are not verified and could contain something else which you do not want on your Linux.

Let's find a file call sources.lst in /etc/apt. Open it and look for http://http.kali.org.... Now, all you need to do is to change it to http://repo.kali.org..... You should have 2 instances of it if you are using the default installation.

Now do you normal apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and you will see the differences. While Repo and Http are both official Kali sources, there are slightly different, but I do not suppose most users will be affected by this differences.

Well, good luck updating and happy pen-testing!

Windows Update Unlocked and Manual Trigger

Ever seen this before? Well, this is an old version of Windows, but it would look somewhat similar when you have policies that preset and prevents you from doing a Windows Update. Usually there is nothing you can do about it and hope that you will eventually get the patch, thanks to your company, but if you are the owner of this machine and has admin rights, then read on.

Usually this is caused by GPO or similar policies preventing you from updating. Or you are not in the administrator group. To solve the GPO, you will need to fire up regedit.

1. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Policies \ Microsoft \ Windows \ WindowsUpdate \ AU. 
2. Delete the keys AUOptions and NoAutoUpdate.
3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ WindowsUpdate.
4. Delete the key DisableWindowsUpdateAccess.

Alternatively, you can also use the Group Policy Editor. 

1. Fire up GP Editor by running "gpedit.msc" in command prompt.
2. Go to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Update.
3. Set "Configure Automatic Updates" to "Not Configured".
4. Got to User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Update.
5. Set "Remove Access" to All  and "Windows Update features" to Not Configured.

On server, you may be able to run "gpupdate /force" to restart the policies, but a reboot is one sure way to get it done.

Next, we sometimes wants to fire up Windows Update and do a on demand update. But in a company wide deployment, often you will get a no access page at Microsoft because the Windows Update Server is set to local. So, here is the way to get it done, via script of in command prompt.

You can skip this steps sometimes, but I find that the sure way to trigger the update is sometimes to shutdown and restart the Windows Update Service like this:

net stop wuauserv

net start wuauserv

After this, you can start the actual trigger to Windows Update:

wuauclt /detectnow

This should make the yellow shield at the tray pops up. You may want to see a update status by:

wuauclt /r /ReportNow

This will communicate with the update server and takes a few minutes. 

And when something does crap out, there is always a very detail log in %systemroot%/WindowsUpdate.log. You will find all your problems inside be it wrong server, connection timeout etc.

Now, the above can definitely be put into a script to be run by schedule and you have your own "Automatic Update" so to speak. Have fun updating Windows (and other Microsoft Products)