RIUM+'s Random Rants

Throughout my time spent online and on this planet called Earth, I have learned some things. Given I had to learn some of these the hard way, I thought I would share my knowledge with the world to save other people some hassle. It might not be useful to everyone, but if it helps just one person out then it was worth posting. Oh, I also accept no responsibility if any of this advice is false, misleading, incorrect, incomplete, makes things worse or turns your pinky fingers orange. Followwing any instructions given on this site is done at your own risk.

Rants so far

- This is my website - 22 January 2006
- What is Windows Update Error number: 0x8DDD0018? - 22 January 2006

This is my website.

Before you read any more, let me just re-state some things that I have said many times before, but in case you have forgotten them here they are once more.

This is my Website.

See that sentence? Let's dissect it into it's pieces.

This. It's referring to what you're reading right now. It encompasses everything at http://www.riumplus.com/ that you see. Other pages I link to aren't written by me - I merely link to them. I don't necessarily agree with everything I link to. And even if I don't agree with it the worst I will do is use logic to debunk any fallacies on that page, or to remove the link altogether (a childish response but sometimes the best option). However, I will always make my best attempts to be reasonable and explain my situation - but under no circumstances will I ever ask someone to change their site for me on the sole reason that I think differently to them. Facts can't be argued with, and that's one thing, but the moment something becomes subjective then everyone's entitled to their own opinion even if it's an opinion I don't agree with or take offence to. Freedom of speech and all.

is. This word is current-tense, but really it should be replaced with was/is/will always be. I'm not just talking about the present here, I'm talking about the past and future as well. In reference to This, my website is, was, and always will be. Will be what? And whose will it be? Glad you asked.

my. It belongs to me. This website once did, currently does and will always belong to me. Me and me only. If I decide I want to share it with someone else so they also have FTP access to update my site or if I want to give it away, I will. Otherwise, it will belong to me. Aside from outside websites I link to, I take complete responsibility of everything here. I edit my site to fix broken HTML/links/images and to add more content. Occasionally I might do an edit to remove something that isn't needed or is just fluff, but otherwise it's exactly as-is. There's sometimes typos and grammatical errors on my site, but I try to minimize them. If you spot one, give me a ring I will write whatever I want. Everything I write is my opinion. If I quote someone else or refer to their work, then obviously it's their work and not mine, but everything else is mine. Was mine. Will always be mine. Don't take it for gold. I'm often sarcastic as well and enjoy joking around, so you shouldn't even take it for Silver. Or Bronze. Or whatever other material you might be inclined to take it for. It's just my opinion. I'm entitled to my opinion as much as you are entitled to yours. If you spot a factual error in one of my pages, again, let me know and I'll either change it when I can or further clarify it. If you don't like my response or it's about something that's open to interpretation, feel free to go to your own little private place on the Internet and write about it to your heart's content. I won't stop you in the slightest. In fact, you can write it in an email to me and so long as you're calm, polite, rational and logical in your argument I'll probably put up your opposing view along with mine. Or if you do set up your own website I can link to it. Don't expect to instantly change my opinion just because you disagree, but I at least like to hear the other side of any argument. So long as you show basic respect for myself and others, anyone's allowed to send me any comments they want regarding my...

website. Note that it contains the word "site" in the name of it - it's my personal site on the web, my webpage, my online time waster, my own personal billboard and my contribution of random facts to the rest of the world. This thing, that is, was, and always will be mine, is my personal website. Note the word personal there. While it's not entirely public (I don't let anyone put whatever they want on here), it's not entirely private. I'm not advertising this website anywhere. I don't make any money off of it. In fact, I pay money yearly for the hosting. There are some small, unobtrusive, text-based ads to the right hand side of the page.I'm a free user. I don't have an extensive friends list, and whilst I don't know how many unique viewers I have, if I have over 50 I'll be rather shocked. I'm not preaching to the masses; I'm preaching to myself. Writing on this is therapeutic and it helps me organize my thoughts together.

So, in closing, let me just say this again in case it has been missed:

This is my Website.

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What is Windows Update Error number: 0x8DDD0018?

Sometimes when you're at Windows Update, something doesn't work. Whenever something doesn't go as expected, it gives you an error code. As usual, that number doesn't give you that much information. A while ago I received error code: 0x8DDD0018 at Windows Update, and I had no idea why. I searched in their help documents and found nothing. I searched online and also found nothing, which seemed rather curious to me as I thought others would have come across the error before. I was on my own to find the answer to this particular problem.

After much trial-and-error, I eventually found an answer to the error code. Windows Update requres certain services - internal Windows components - to be running. If those components aren't running then it won't let you use Windows Update. However, for some reason it not only requires these services to be running, but they have to be set to Automatic (to start when the computer first turns on, rather than to just start when they're needed). Don't ask me why. When you access Windows Update it automatically starts the services if they're set to manual, but it doesn't work. That's what this error code means. It took me quite a while to figure out that one!

The services normally are set to Automatic, but they can sometimes be switched to Manual or Disabled for some reason. This could be to prevent your computer contacting Microsoft all the time, increased security/stability by having less services running in the background, a slightly faster startup time thanks to the computer not having to initially load quite as many services when it boots up, to slightly increase the amount of available RAM to other applications, or because the sky happenned to be a slightly darker shade of blue that day - who knows for sure as to why they sometimes get set like this, but lots of people purposefully set them that way. (I'm one of them!)

To re-enable the services so that Windows Update works again, simply navigate to Start>Run and enter in the box services.msc then press enter. This opens up the Windows services manager. Look down the list for the one called Automatic Updates, then double-click on it. In the window that pops up, on the General tab, change the Startup type from whatever it currently is to Automatic. Click OK, then do this again for the services called Background Intelligent Transfer Service and Event Log. Close the services manager and refresh Windows Update - no reboot should be necessary - and it should work for you all fine and dandy again!

However, I personally recommend that you instead set Event Log to Automatic, Background Intelligent Transfer Service to Manual and Automatic Updates to Disabled and instead use WindizUpdate to update your computer. It updates all versions of Windows back to and including 95, it doesn't use Windows Genuine Advantage verification and they don't collect private data concerning your computer. It works almost the same as Windows Update works, except that while Windows Update only works in Internet Explorer, WindizUpdate happens to work in the most popular alternative browsers except Internet Explorer. But you shouldn't be using Internet Explorer anyway. It's too insecure, slow, bug-ridden and doesn't obey the standards.

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