The what was wrong part, I havent a clue. It worked fine for a couple months but I think he picked up something that knocked some of his computer files out of whack. My sons computer would pop up a bunch of error windows about file paths etc..... The first one being that "*exception thrown*" error. I even uninstalled and re-installed the updater several times and that would not correct it either. FINALLY I tried this..... After running the updater and clicking through the error blocks, open "settings" then go to the arrow in the drop down window that reads "updater", three choices pop out to the right, select "reset all settings". Close out the updater, rerun the updater, when/if you get the error blocks again, just close them out as you go and return to "settings" and then you should be able to set the "file path" to wherever your EQ2.exe folder is and it will run the updater once you select the file path.
I hope this is helpful, I tried to type this in n00b language since it's the only language I speak.