0

Today (14-Aug-2010) I installed automatic updates for Win7 on my iMac. They could've been there a while waiting to be installed as it was a while since I booted up the mac into Windows. Previous update was on 2-Aug-2010.

Once I restarted the machine, it freezed on the windows startup screen (the logo didn't even come up).

So when I restarted it went into the startup check (find errors or whatever), which - after acknowledging that the system could not restart - just came back with an eloquent:

could not find a solution for the problem

After that I got a standard (useless) dialog asking to send errors to microsoft (there's only one kind of those that I have ever seen).

So I went into manual restore, which failed for a number of restore points. I was about to despair but then on re-start it worked acknowledging restore for the last restore point I tried.

Now I am afraid to install any further updates. I am guessing that if there is a recent win7 update that causes problems to iMacs 27'' the word should be out by now, so I'd appreciate if anyone has any info on this as I could not find anything on google.

NOTE: for those of you picking on my lack of accuracy in describing error messages, my question is more about a recent win7 update that could cause problems to iMac 27''. I don't think there a wide range of possible problems that could affect an iMac 27'' with the last Win7 update and someone must have figured this out before. In this sense, I'd be interested in hearing your experience on that or any relevant advice to the particular situation.

Improve this question
16
  • 2
    "the problems could not be fixed, bye bye": Did it really say bye bye? You should be more exact with what you see with this kind of stuff.
    – nelsonjchen
    Commented Aug 14, 2010 at 17:09
  • 1
    "The usual stuff" can vary quite a lot. Knowing the exact error message would make it more likely that someone can provide a meaningful answer.
    – Mike Chess
    Commented Aug 14, 2010 at 17:27
  • 1
    Actually, it's very relevant. For those of us that understand Windows better than you, we could easily isolate the message as originating from a handful of components and get to the issue at hand.
    – Rafael Rivera
    Commented Aug 15, 2010 at 1:10
  • 1
    @Johnldol With all due respect, most error messages may look like gibberish and useless to the common user, but to techies they have probably seen that error message a million times and know exactly whats wrong. This is why it is VERY import that you post the exact error message. Especially!!! any error codes. (These can usually be found in the event log). Which brings me to my next point, can you check the event log to see if there is anything unusual in there? It may point to a specific update that failed.
    – Natalie Adams
    Commented Aug 15, 2010 at 14:54
  • 1
    @Johnldol Dude, the only thing that was asked of you was just to include the entire error message? What is your problem!? It isn't that much of a request is it?
    – Pylsa
    Commented Aug 15, 2010 at 16:22

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

I haven't encountered a situation like yours before. I don't run any version of Windows on my Mac computers.

However, if I encountered a problem with a Windows update killing a pc and if I was able to restore the system to a functioning state by reverting changes then I would

  • look at the list of pending Windows updates
  • research the updates to see if any had specific issues associated with being applied to my particular computer
  • apply only those updates that seem to be safe for my particular computer one at a time
  • revert any updates that caused a problem and skip those

You should be able to follow the same process updating Windows 7 on an iMac.

I know, it seems like a pain process to go through. But absent knowing the specific error message you saw the only way to know which update caused your problem is to apply the necessary updates one at a time.

When you have identified the Windows 7 update(s) that cause problems on an iMac, please post an update with your findings. I'm sure others would appreciate knowing your findings.

Good luck.

Improve this answer
1
  • thanks - that sounds reasonable. I can assure you that the only error message I got after the freeze came after the automatic check and was very very generic. I will try to run the updates one by ione and see what happens, but it'll take me time so not sure when I'll be able to get around to do it as I use the machine for work. At the moment I disabled all the automatic updates anyway ...
    – JohnIdol
    Commented Aug 15, 2010 at 19:21

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .