FAQ
Common Update Issues
Nothing happens when I run LegacyUpdate.exe
There is an issue in Windows XP that appears to be triggered by the digital signature on the latest versions of Legacy Update (1.8 and later). This makes Legacy Update setup not run at all, with no error message.
To work around this, you will need to unblock the file:
Right click LegacyUpdate.exe and select Properties.
Click Unblock at the bottom of the window, then click OK.
This workaround isn’t needed if legacyupdate.net is in your Internet Explorer Trusted Sites list. This is done for you automatically when you install Legacy Update.
If you’re nervous about whether the file is legitimate, you can review the Digital Signatures tab of the file properties on a newer operating system such as Windows 10, which will have no issue confirming that it’s signed by Hashbang Productions.
“Checking for updates” taking too long
Windows Update has an infamous flaw: Checking for updates, especially for the first time, can be incredibly slow. This has been caused by the significant number of updates released by Microsoft over the years, and the effectively infinite number of configurations a Windows system can be in. To determine which updates are applicable to your system, Windows needs to evaluate many thousands of queries against your system configuration. Simply put, the age of the Windows version you’re using, and the number of additional Microsoft products installed on it, will affect how long you need to wait for Windows to check for updates.
This issue is especially apparent with Windows Vista and later, which significantly overhaul Windows’s “servicing” system. While the new servicing stack is far more reliable than in prior versions of Windows, it also exponentially increases the amount of work Windows must do to check for updates.
In 2016, Microsoft recognised the performance issues with Windows Update, and released servicing stack updates that dramatically improved, but still didn’t fully fix, the issue. Legacy Update installs these updates for you.
After installing Legacy Update, here is what you can expect:
- Windows 2000, XP: Checking for updates for the first time may take up to 15 minutes.
- Windows Server 2003/2003 R2: Checking for updates for the first time may take up to 30 minutes. Please be patient for this to complete. If you get the error message “External cab file processing completed with some errors”, simply try checking for updates again.
- Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1: Checking for updates for the first time may take between 30 - 60 minutes. Please be patient for this to complete.
- Office 2010: Having Office 2010 installed may cause checking for updates to never complete. There is a workaround available.
Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender
Attempting to update Microsoft Security Essentials or Windows Defender on Windows XP or Vista will display an error message with code 0x80072EFE - “The definition updates couldn't be installed. Please try again later.” Instead, you will need to manually download and install the final definition update that supported these versions:
- Windows XP and Vista 32-bit Security Essentials (1.291.2489.0, 22 April 2019)
- Windows XP x64 Edition Security Essentials (1.265.826.0, 18 April 2018)
- Windows Vista 64-bit Security Essentials (1.291.2053.0, 16 April 2019)
- Windows Vista 32-bit Defender (1.291.2053.0, 16 April 2019)
- Windows Vista 64-bit Defender (1.291.2053.0, 16 April 2019)
After running the correct update for your system, you won’t see anything appear. This is normal - wait approximately 1 minute, and then check Security Essentials or Defender again. It should confirm that the definitions have been installed.
Updating Security Essentials still won’t be possible, because no more updates exist. However, once manually installed, these definitions can always be used to scan your PC for malware.
Windows Live Essentials
Attempting to install Windows Live Essentials on Windows XP or Vista, as offered by Windows Update, will fail. This is because it ignores your PC’s Windows Update configuration and will always try to retrieve updates directly from Microsoft, bypassing Legacy Update. Instead, you will need to manually download and install the full/offline installer of Windows Live Essentials.
Security Update for Windows XP (KB2686509)
This update, a security patch for a vulnerability in how Windows XP parses keyboard layout data, is notorious for failing to install. The cause is that the update is slightly different between standard Windows XP and Windows Embedded 2009, so if you’ve selected to receive Embedded 2009 updates on XP, the incorrect version of this update will be downloaded.
To fix this, manually download and install the Windows XP variant of the update:
- WindowsXP-KB2686509-x86-ENU.exe
- For other language editions of Windows, refer to KB2686509 on Microsoft Update Catalog.
Windows 7 “E” editions
Legacy Update requires Internet Explorer, but certain editions of Windows 7, labelled as “E”, don’t include Internet Explorer by default.
To install Internet Explorer, use one of the following downloads:
- Internet Explorer 11 (32-bit)
- Internet Explorer 11 (64-bit)
- Language Packs for non-English releases of Windows
“NTLDR is missing” after installing updates
The final version of the Windows Update Agent released for Windows XP has a bug that triggers a limitation of XP’s bootloader (NTLDR). This seems to only occur on Windows XP Home Edition and Embedded, and is not an issue on Professional. Specifically, the bug is that the installer enters an infinite loop of creating temporary folders in the root of C:, which causes the NTFS Master File Table (MFT) to become too fragmented for NTLDR’s master boot record (MBR) program to make sense of. This is covered by KB320397, a patch for XP SP1 that was later built into XP SP2, but the issue still seems to occur despite the fix.
Legacy Update 1.6 and later work around this by using an older version of the Windows Update Agent without this bug. If you’ve installed an older version of Legacy Update, or manually installed Windows Update Agent 7.6.7600.256, you can resolve this in one of a few ways:
If you have a bootable third-party defrag tool, it may be able to defragment the MFT. If it provides this option, you should be able to boot into Windows again once it has done this. Note that the Windows built-in defrag tool will not work, as it doesn’t support defragmenting the MFT.
If your PC has a floppy drive, and you have a spare floppy and another PC with a floppy drive, you can use the Microsoft bcupdate2.exe utility. Download it from this link, and copy it to a bootable MS-DOS floppy. If you need to make an MS-DOS floppy, you can right click A: → Format → check the “Create an MS-DOS startup disk” box, or use Bootdisk.com’s MS-DOS 6.22 floppy. At the MS-DOS prompt, type bcupdate2 C: and press Enter (assuming your Windows installation is on drive C:). Once you return to the A:\> prompt, remove the floppy and press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to restart.
If you have a dual-boot, or bootable Windows PE CD/USB such as Hiren’s Boot CD, you can repair this without additional tools. Browse to your C: drive, then sort by Date Modified. Click the first folder with a long, random name, then scroll to the last folder, hold Shift, and click that. Make extra sure you have only selected folders named with a long, random hash, which will look something like “8a3df9adb37cd66105f9c2”. Cut (Ctrl-X) the selection, then find somewhere else you can put them (perhaps make a folder on your desktop in C:\Documents and Settings\MyName\Desktop), and paste (Ctrl-V). Then, open a Command Prompt (likely from the Start menu), and run chkdsk C: /r. This will perform a full repair, which can take a long time.