LibreOffice installation and AVG may have damaged my hard drive [SOLVED]

[TheFifthSardonyx]

Hello all, I’ve been using LibreOffice for years, and a few days ago I decided to install the latest version 7.0.4. While installing I was surprised that LibreOffice took the liberty to install a Windows Update (KB2999266) on my Windows 8.1 system. The LibreOffice install seemed to take unusually long, longer than any other software product I have ever used (including previous versions of LibreOffice). I discovered that KB2999266 is an update that allows Windows desktop applications that depend on the Windows 10 Universal CRT release to run on earlier Windows operating systems. But I’m pretty sure the prerequisites for that update were NOT installed already, since I have had Windows Updates turned off for some time.

After installation, I thought that perhaps the latest version of LibreOffice was not letting me do what I had wanted with a Word document, so I uninstalled it and installed version 6.4.7. Well, that is where things got crazy. This version tried installing KB2999266 also, despite the fact that it was already installed! As such, the installer hung at this point for a tremendous amount of time, before finally completing. However, after installation, I immediately knew something was wrong. Things were freezing, and pages were taking long to load. I checked Task Manager and my RAM usage was at 99% (I have 32 GB) and harddrive (OS drive) was at 100%. I thought… don’t tell me AVG Free has ANOTHER memory leak. I have automatic updates turned off with AVG because a few months ago they released a software update that resulted in 100% of your RAM being used. Eventually, they fixed it, and so I turned off auto-updates to prevent that from happening ever again. But here it was. I tried to reboot my PC, but it froze during the reboot process, so I had to hit the restart button on the chassis.

Once the PC rebooted, sure enough, the RAM usage began climbing again. I uninstalled LibreOffice and the KB2999266 update, but the RAM continued climbing. So I used AVG Clear to uninstall AVG, and it immediately dropped back to normal (after restart). I then installed the latest version of AVG Free from their website (20.10.3157 build 20.10.5824.625), and thankfully there was no memory leak, but strangely, my hard drive usage was at 100% long after the install had completed (much longer than normal) before it finally went back to 0%.

Now I have been noticing a very occasional “hitch” or “delay” when typing or when scrolling a webpage, etc. The last time I had experienced such things was just before a hard drive failure. Granted, I cannot put the full blame on LibreOffice, as AVG was the culprit causing the system overload. HOWEVER, it was almost certainly LibreOffice’s installation (possibly of KB2999266) that TRIGGERED AVG’s bizarre memory leak, since there was NO logical way AVG could have triggered this itself since its software updates were turned off (and only virus definitions were allowed to be updated).

I know that likely makes no sense, but if there is no chance of real correlation between these events, then that is the most bizarre, perfectly timed coincidence I have ever seen. Any thoughts on this? Could LibreOffice’s installation really have caused AVG’s memory leak which also resulted in so much extended hard drive usage that damage may have occurred? Could LibreOffice force-installing an update without the prerequisite not have caused problems right at the start? And, at the very least, why is LibreOffice’s installer not smart enough to detect an existing installation of KB2999266? Lastly, I do not understand why LibreOffice even requires that update. The previous version I used (5.1.4) did not need this. I have used very recent versions of other high-end commercial software products, more advanced than LibreOffice, that did not require such an update to install on Windows 8.1, so the whole thing seems like it could have been an avoidable problem.

Thanks so much for your time. If any LibreOffice devs or tech-savvy individuals are reading this, I would appreciate your thoughts on the above scenario.

EDIT: 01-22-2021 Added Solution Below

[mikekaganski]

Could LibreOffice’s installation really have caused AVG’s memory leak which also resulted in so much extended hard drive usage that damage may have occurred?

No way to tell what could ever make any antivirus start doing strange things. Antivirus software by definition monitors tons of low-level activity, and if they have some bug, just anything can happen to be the trigger. The answer to the question itself has no value, because “yes” or “no” change nothing.

Could LibreOffice force-installing an update without the prerequisite not have caused problems right at the start?

The premise (“without the prerequisite”, also mentioned above that in “I’m pretty sure the prerequisites for that update were NOT installed already, since I have had Windows Updates turned off for some time”) is wrong. On Windows 8.1, KB2999266 only depends on April 2014 update rollup; and installer checks if that is installed as a pre-requisite, simply refusing to start if that pre-requisite is absent (see this commit). So if your system would happen to miss that pre-requisite, it would not try to install KB2999266, but just reported that on launch and exited.

However, since we need to use Windows Update service when installing the update, we enable it temporarily. If there is an internet connection active, Windows Update might start doing its own tasks at this point, trying to detect what it’s missing (unrelated to LO installer), just because it was awaken. This would cause the delays, and other unrelated processing…

And, at the very least, why is LibreOffice’s installer not smart enough to detect an existing installation of KB2999266?

Very simple: Because another antivirus - Avast - did incorrect, hackish partial installation of UCRT, and that fact made it impossible to detect the presence of UCRT on the system. See tdf#119910 for the discussion, and also this avast forum post where I notified them. Also related is tdf#122134.

Lastly, I do not understand why LibreOffice even requires that update. The previous version I used (5.1.4) did not need this.

We switched to Visual Studio 2015, which first used split CRT, when we developed LO version 5.4.

I have used very recent versions of other high-end commercial software products, more advanced than LibreOffice, that did not require such an update to install on Windows 8.1, so the whole thing seems like it could have been an avoidable problem.

MS has made a very awkward decision to split their runtime into two pieces (UCRT and vc_redist) when they prepared their Windows 10; that had made it very problematic for many. There are several strategies to make sure UCRT is available; one of them being app-local deployment (when UCRT libraries are installed alongside with application files) - this way is explicitly discouraged by MS “for both performance and security reasons”. Some applications still choose this way.

Another way is to use vc_redist installers provided by MS, which themselves include KB2999266 (that would not change anything for you, but I just mention this for completeness). This way is not applicable for MSI installation, because the said installers also include MSIs for other components, and nested installations are impossible with MSI technology. Yet, some software uses this method, when they do not depend on MSI.

The problems had led some vendors to hack this, and install UCRT libraries bypassing intended mechanisms; a bright example of such “high-end commercial software products, more advanced than LibreOffice” is the mentioned avast. Well, what can I say. Indeed there are ways to avoid problems, at the cost of bigger problems.

You may read more at this issue that I filed against MS Visual Studio team about their strange thinking when they decided the split. Just to give you some additional perspective on the issue.

[TheFifthSardonyx]

Thank you Mike for that incredibly detailed answer! That definitely sheds more light on the issue, and thus I would lay the blame on AVG (Avast) for tampering with Windows. I guess all the LibreOffice installation did was trigger a bomb AVG had already set in my system… Thanks again for your help!

[TheFifthSardonyx]

ISSUE SOLVED: Praise the Lord! It turns out @AlderOak was correct that the “hitching / freezing” was NOT a hard drive error. Today I read an article about how making changes to the registry can cause system instability (such as using CCleaner to remove unused registry entries, which many argue is completely unnecessary).

Now, in my case, two events could possibly have caused either registry issues or system instability:

1. I cleaned the registry on Jan 18th, but if I remember correctly this was only after all the freezing and problems had already occurred; and/or
2. When the computer completely froze during the restart (due to excessive RAM usage) I had to manually restart it.

Anyway, today I noticed my computer had automatically created a restore point before I had uninstalled the original LibreOffice (5.2.4.2) back on the 18th. So I made sure I copied any recent files (just to be safe) and then used the System Restore feature of Windows to “roll back” to that restore point. It took about 15 minutes, but it worked! AVG was restored back to its previous version (20.7.3140 from 20.10.3157), and worked fine, only the restored version of LibreOffice didn’t work. So I uninstalled it and installed the last available version BEFORE the devs made the switch to Visual Studio 2015-- this was LibreOffice 5.3.7.2.

The install was flawless, and only took a few seconds, instead of the several minutes that 7.0.4 and 6.4.7 had taken. Moreover, version 5.3.7.2 correctly read the interactive calendar list from a .docx file, whereas the newer versions had a bug, adding extra numbers beside it. So I am very thrilled to find this excellent version that works great on my Windows 8.1 system.

A huge thank-you to @Mike-Kaganski for the detailed diagnosis of AVG (Avast) tampering with Windows which resulted in LibreOffice being unable to recognize that a system update was already installed, and the info about the change that came to LibreOffice in version 5.4.

TLDR: If anyone on Windows 8.1 encounters hitches or freezes after installing the latest version of LibreOffice and/or AVG, use System Restore to roll back to a previous point (and possibly install LibreOffice 5.3.7.2 instead, which is the last version that can install on Windows 8.1 without requiring a Windows Update). And if your system is working great now, create a restore point so you can always go back to that point if you encounter problems later. This article explains how to do that.