Had a problem with installation of the first of the .net updates last month and after repeated failed attempts to get it to install, and after several other updates also failed subsequently, I decided to try MS's free tech support for security issues. We got all the failed updates to install manually except for the two .net updates. The first, the one that originally first failed, would hang at about 50% on the progress bar and just sit there.
When I attempted to do the update manually while in SafeMode, I got a message saying that the component/app for which the update was intended was not installed on my computer & it stopped right there (.net 2.0 is installed on my rig).
Long story short - In the course of troubleshooting, the tech wanted to check something in MSConfig. I haven't had occasion to use it in a long time but I'm pretty certain I've run it on this desktop at some point since I bought it 3 years ago or so. When we launched msconfig.exe from the run command, the process showed up in TaskManager but no UI appeared. When the tech did some digging in the registry, she couldn't find whatever should have been there for msconfig.exe (I tried to get out of her what she was looking for & couldn't find but all she'd say is that there is a registry issue with msconfig).
There are two instances of files named msconfig.exe on my system, one in C:\\Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386 and one in C:\\Windows\pchealth\hlpcenter\binaries. Running either results in the same behavior - a process running in TaskManager without a UI.
This brought the tech support to a halt since the msconfig.exe issue was not a 'security' issue and they couldn't troubleshoot the security issue any further without being able to check MSConfig.
Any of you have ideas on this before I go spending my next 4 rounds of golf on MS Consumer Support?
Thanks!