I have had a terrible time recently trying to get an IE7 security rollup update from Windows Update to apply on my text-bench Server 2008 laptop. I’ve tried all the usual tricks, including deleting the local Windows Update file store (c:windowssoftwaredistribution), but every time I try applying this one update, Server 2008 quickly degrades into a scenario where it’s using every speck of RAM and thrashing to the pagefile for hours on end. (I have been amused to note on Microsoft’s website that the error messages noted in the event log indicate a “complex problem” which is Microsoft’s polite way of saying there’s no way in heck I’m going to solve it on my own.)
It occurred to me that perhaps this system has some file corruption in the system areas, and that led me to run a little-known utility called the System File Checker (SFC). This program has been around for years, and it’s still there in Server 2008. In a nutshell, it checks all of your system files for corruption, and if it finds any, it will try to fix the problem by copying over a known-good file from one of Windows’ various “hip pocket” caches (DLLCACHE in Server 2003, WINSXS in Server 2008).
If you just want to run SFC without actually repairing anything, use the VERIFYONLY switch. If you want SFC to attempt repairs, then use SCANNOW. (As usual, you can get the detailed syntax at the command prompt with the /? switch.) When I ran the tool, it found some corrupt files pertaining to Hyper-V (which seems to be running fine) but wasn’t able to fix them. Alas, this didn’t fix my Patch From Hell problem, but it occurred to me that if you’ve never looked at this little tool, you might want to take it out for a spin. If there’s any system-file corruption on YOUR disks, SFC just might bring it to light.
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