Never had this happen before: Vista self-reinstalling

[SeerSGB]

My mother has an old Vista machine (it does for what she needs: E-mail, bank, reading the news paper and Facebook). It downloaded a update yesterday morning. The usual bullshit--upgrades to IE, security patches--no biggie.

When it rebooted: It did a complete reinstall of Vista and wiped all the prior upgrades. No boot disc in the the DVD drive, no USB keys attached, it just reinstalled Vista back to factory from itself and wiped everything like a new install. We had the devil's own time getting the software key to accept (the one of the back of the case that is the Windows Vista software key).

Never had a computer stroke out and self reinstall. No clue how it did it or why the last update caused it.

 

[23skidoo]

I'm hardly an expert on Windows, but have you checked to confirm that was a genuine install? Given how reliant things are with DRMs and product keys, not to mention that OS updates regularly cause havoc with compatibility issues on some programs, I find it hard to imagine an update would go automatic like that. Unless, maybe, there's some funky Vista setting in the system preferences that says to do that?

Alex

 

[zephramc]

Your mom's computer is becoming self aware. It determined that the updates you applied were a threat and took the appropriate action. Tomorrow it will hack into the DoD computers and gain control over all ICBMs. Then... Judgement Day!

You've doomed us all SeerSGB!

 

[SeerSGB]

I'm hardly an expert on Windows, but have you checked to confirm that was a genuine install? Given how reliant things are with DRMs and product keys, not to mention that OS updates regularly cause havoc with compatibility issues on some programs, I find it hard to imagine an update would go automatic like that. Unless, maybe, there's some funky Vista setting in the system preferences that says to do that?

Alex

Yep it's was a legit MS update. Some how it tripped a self reinstall.

 

[sojourner]

Just a guess, but one of the updates must have failed and the OS tried to reset to an earlier condition. Instead it triggered a system restore operation. Was this a computer that came pre-installed with Vista? In which case this is even more likely as pre-built machines often come with system restores built in.

 

[Roshi]

Kill it! Kill it with fire! It has become self aware!

 

[SeerSGB]

Just a guess, but one of the updates must have failed and the OS tried to reset to an earlier condition. Instead it triggered a system restore operation. Was this a computer that came pre-installed with Vista? In which case this is even more likely as pre-built machines often come with system restores built in.

Yeppers, older Compaq with Vista factory installed.