Hi Ron:

I have one Win 7 Pro/SP1 system running Windows MSE, but not in real-time recently. I re-activated MSE tonight, and updated it to V.1.279.526.0. No problems like you describe here. Maybe I missed a bad definition update.

To toggle the View Desktop icon on/off in Win 7 taskbar, right-click a blank area on the taskbar>Click on Toolbars> Un-check Desktop.

@joe53Thanks for the feedback.

Think you misunderstood what I said about the "Show Desktop" button. After things went south yesterday, the "Show Desktop" button appeared on the far right-end of the taskbar, to the right of the clock. That button wasn't there before.

To toggle between an open window(s) and the desktop, I use Win+D on the keyboard, so the button is unnecessary, and I don't have to right-click the taskbar like you suggested to toggle, but thanks for that suggestion. 

Don't remember how I made the button disappear after I upgraded this PC to Win 7Pro. Lots of rants about that button on the net, but the only way I see to make it go away is to run one of those little tweaker apps in the background, which I'd rather not do. There must be a registry hack to do this, but I just haven't found it.

Found a registry hack to make the shadows under the desktop icons go away again. That option is unchecked on the Win 7 Appearances screen, but the shadows remained, but the hack did the trick.

Clearly something went wrong after installing that MSE update yesterday. I got updated to definitions  1.279.516.0 this morning, but that's earlier than 1.279.526.0 on your system, which makes no sense.

Ran chkdsk and sfc last night but neither reported any errors, so I'm running out of ideas. Probably have to back up all my personal files and revert to the last Acronis backup image I made since I still can't change other appearance settings and Aero isn't working either.

I am also having on ongoing problem with Windows Updates. I don't use MSE, but get them from the regular Windows Updates page. For two months running the "Roll Up For Windows 7 For X64 Based Systems" has failed to install with the same error code as previously mentioned in a previous thread. This time it is KB4462923.  Last month it was the same thing labeled as KB4457144.

Not sure what exactly is causing this, but I keep my security products strictly up to date and assume I can stand to not have these updates as the descriptions are always so ambiguous. The updates for Windows Defender definitions, and updates for Windows Net Framework continue to download and install with no problems.   :Hmm:

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@dalem29 wrote:

I am also having on ongoing problem with Windows Updates. I don't use MSE, but get them from the regular Windows Updates page. For two months running the "Roll Up For Windows 7 For X64 Based Systems" has failed to install with the same error code as previously mentioned in a previous thread. This time it is KB4462923.  Last month it was the same thing labeled as KB4457144.

Not sure what exactly is causing this, but I keep my security products strictly up to date and assume I can stand to not have these updates as the descriptions are always so ambiguous. The updates for Windows Defender definitions, and updates for Windows Net Framework continue to download and install with no problems.   :Hmm:

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IIRC, you had a thread in this forum a while back about KB4457144 failing. I posted a link in that thread saying it probably fails because you're missing a prior update from back in 2016. So until you install that prior update, KB4457144 won't install and that may mean KB4462923 won't install without KB4457144. Read this because you have to manually install KB3177467, eg download and run it yourself, not through Windows Update. I bet if you look through your Windows Update history either KB3177467 isn't listed or is marked "failed".

As for my WU problem, I backed up files and reverted to my last hard drive image. Had to do a couple rounds of updates after reverting, and everything seems "normal" again.

FF 63.0 is running very slowly, compared to loading the same web page with IE11, but I just started using FF, so  don't know if FF is just really s-l-o-w compared to IE or...

Morning, Joe.

Found that update on the Windows Updates Catalog, about a 9.1 MB download. It shows many different applications for the same update number. I assume I should pick the one as it was described in the original update:

"Update for Windows 7 for x-based Systems" 

Hope the download will not turn my computer to stone!

If you haven't already tried to install that  'missing' update, manually set a System Restore point first, to be safe. :Wink:

Downloading that missing update 3177467 seems to do the trick....the rest of Windows updates downloaded and installed correctly. I had checked with Belarc Advisor and noticed that some other Hot Fixes were not installed: Q3159398, 4457145, 4462915, and 4462949. Have no idea how far they date back or if it would be advisable to install them at this point.

Glad to hear that installing KB3177467 allowed those others to be installed. :Yes:

Who knows if installing those missing Hotfixes now will cause more problems...?

If you attempt to install them, I'd set a System Restore point before installing the first one, reboot after that one, set a new System Restore before moving on to the next one....