Update Problem

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Update problem This icon marks software whose updater has been found to fail.

To do the update, there are several approaches which often make the update succeed.

Following are specific procedures which have been known to successfully do the update for:

Adobe (Acrobat) Reader

Adobe has recently complicated things by creating a new program called Acrobat Reader DC to replace the classic Acrobat Reader. Users should try to install the new program.

This procedure installed the new Adobe Reader when nothing else tried would work:

Adobe Shockwave

This procedure installed the new Shockwave Player when nothing else tried would work:

NB​: there is some evidence that Adobe updates Shockwave without asking the user. If you can’t install an update, you should check whether Adobe has done the install for you in the background.

NB​: Adobe’s link to down­load Shockwave is often broken for months at a time. Sometimes the down­load may be found elsewhere on the Adobe site, but sometimes critical se­cu­ri­ty updates can’t be installed for many, many weeks. I recom­mend that, when you cannot install a critical update, you should uninstall Shockwave.

Apple QuickTime

This normal installation procedure is found at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/.

Once this failed: a workable installation procedure was found at http://support.apple.com/downloads/#quicktime.

Warning : Quicktime for Windows has se­cu­ri­ty flaws which may never be fixed; users should consider uninstalling it.

Google Chrome

Sometimes Chrome is incapable of updating itself: it either is incapable of recognizing that an update is available, or the attempt to check for an update results in an error message.

When this happens, the following was able to do the update:

Sometimes Chrome crashes after an update. If this happens, restart the operating system, relaunch Chrome, and recheck for updates.

Microsoft Windows Update

There are three problems with Windows Update.

One problem is that some updates refuse to install on some PCs. Despite the fact that many people have problems with certain updates, Microsoft has never bothered to fix the installation problems. Examples of problem updates are KB2864202 and KB2685811.

A second problem is that the Windows Update procedure can take a long time — many, many hours — to install updates to the tool to remove malicious software. I believe that the procedure scans the hard drive for malicious updates, which, if there are many files, can take hours and hours and hours. The only work-around to this is to skip the update to this tool, then repeat the Windows Update process at the end of the day so that the procedure can proceed overnight: unfortunately users of Windows 10 can’t do this, because with Windows 10 it isn’t possible to skip or delay particular updates, so Windows 10 users will suffer from a permanent loss of productivity.

The third problem is that Windows Update doesn’t work with Windows 10. Instead you have to use the Settings menu to get to the Control Panel’s Windows Update function.

Mozilla Firefox Browser

There are a lot of problems installing updates of Firefox:

This procedure installed many versions of Firefox when nothing else would work:

Opera Browser Suite

This procedure installed Opera 24 and 25.0.1614.63 when nothing else tried would work:

Caution: the Opera installation procedure tries very hard to make Opera the default browser; be careful to prevent this if you don’t want Opera to be the default.

Oracle Java

This procedure installed 8u20 when nothing else tried would work:

 

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