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Windows Update Problems

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by eraser3498

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Whenever I go to run windows update the site will load and the option for Custom and express come up and then the download bar never goes away and the update page never loads, it stays on the Contacting website page. I ran various scans for viruses and spyware but they've all came up clean. I've done a winsock repair nothing seems to help. Everything else works the internet is fast and works well otherwise. I've notice that a svchost.exe process is running at 97% whenever I excute the update section as well and can only get it to stop be manually killing the process. I've also tried upating to IE 7 but it locks the same as the update section when it trys to download patches for it. Any and all ideas on this issue are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

19 replies

by thecompgal

I have this problem with some 2000 machines, and some wireless adapters.
Try....
..clearing cache and history from IE, then reboot.
..DL updates manually, after a few try auto again
..if win XP make sure activeX is installed.
..if wireless, throw a nic in.

by zaferus

I had a very similar issue with a system, and spent several hours working to fix it. Even if I manually downloaded the updates it got screwed up.

In the end I determined that I had some .dll's that were acting screwy (I had them written down but I don't remember anymore) and I had problems replacing them with known good one's as the known good one's were older and I had problems re-registering the older ones as the OS didn't like the change backwards. After fighting with it for a few more hours I felt like I was wasting my time and just re-installed the system again fixing the issue.

I'm not saying you have the same issue, but I certainly had the exact same symptoms.

I believe my issue was caused by an update that went south that caused further updates to fail. Maybe you could try reversing some of the updates chronologically backwards (in add/remove programs) and seeing if after each reversal you have your functionality back. If this doesn't work maybe try uninstalling all updates, re-install the last service pack and re-patch from there.

Good luck!

by rick_b

This happens all the time on our network.
Here is what we do
Delete the catroot2 folder and contents. It's in the system32 folder usually here: C:\WINDOWS\system32\CatRoot2. You can also rename it. Reboot and XP will create a new one at boot up. Then try windows update again.

by rick_b

If you try to delete get a cryptographic error messages; Do this:

net stop cryptsvc
ren %systemroot%\system32\catroot2 oldcatroot2
net start cryptsvc

Rick

by zlitocook

Check to see if you have the newest windows installer, go to MS site and download it. Do a full system clean up and defrag, scandisk.
Try down loading one update and installing it if that works you have a bad patch info file. Look to MS KB about patches not installing, it will give you a work around and let you update after that.

by eraser3498

I finally received an error code from windows update after 45 minutes 0X8DDD0009. I've done some searching on this issue and tried the registry fixes, uninstalls and reinstalls of service pack 2, various patches etc. as well as registring and unregisting components none of which helped. If anyone any new ideas they would be greatly appreicated. Thanks.

by zaferus

This was a bit of a vague response - if you uninstalled all patches and the service pack 2 were you able to re-install any? Some? Most? Just SP2?

If none of the suggestions worked - get your OS disk and re-install your OS. It's likely even if you get this one thing resolved you'll be chasing bugs until you re-install anyways.

by zaferus

Sorry I see your comments above for what you tried.

Try this:
1. Click Start, click Run, and type in "cmd" (without quotations) and press Enter. Please run the following command in the opened window to stop the Automatic Updates service.

Type in "net stop WuAuServ" (without quotations) and press Enter.

Note: Please ensure the Automatic Updates service is stopped before we try to rename the folder.

2. Click Start, click Run, and type in "%windir%" (without quotations) and press Enter.

3. In the opened folder, rename the folder SoftwareDistribution to SDold.

4. Click Start, click Run, and type in "cmd" (without quotations) and press Enter. Please run the command "net start WuAuServ" in the opened window to restart the service Automatic Updates.

by eraser3498

Tried that as well still the same results. I reinstalled service pack 2 but it was from the CD not the web.

by zlitocook

Sorry but if updates are not working even though you have tried all the answers here and you do not get the popup from MS saying you have a bad copy of Windows. Then I would back up my system and reinstall because if you can not get updates you are a target for hackers, botnets and any one looking to get into a computer.

by zaferus

I agree with zlito - including that you have to consider the possibility that there may be some type of malware in your system contributing to this error.

I recommend booting from the CD into the repair DOS prompt and renaming your Windows folder to windows.old and then re-installing from scratch to ensure no duplicate bad files are used. And at least you can reference your inf and other drivers folders for easy driver re-installation.

As always - backup your data first. Sometimes it really is faster to re-install than chase the "gremlin". And look at the bright side your system should run nice and fast once the OS is re-installed.

-Z

-Z

by zaferus

One thing that "may" work is to pop the CD in and try to do a repair of your Windows before re-installing. On occasion it does fix the elusive glitch.

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