Fixing Windows Update on XP SP3

Bad news: Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, or one of the subsequent patches, breaks Windows Update. Not all the time, but often enough that I got burned twice.

Good news: Microsoft offers free technical support for Windows Update and that support provided a solution to my problem.

While consumers are conditioned to call their hardware manufacturer for technical support, Microsoft offers free support for Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, IE7 and Windows Update. Support for SP3 and IE7 is offered on the phone [phone]), although, I had a hard time qualifying. Support for Windows Update is offered by email.

(Credit: Microsoft)

To request assistance with Windows Update, start at the Windows Update website (Tools -> Windows Update in IE6 and IE7) and click on the "Get help and support" link in the gray stripe on the left. Then click on "Send a problem report".

The best way to do this is with Internet Explorer on the computer with the problem. This allows Microsoft to download an ActiveX control that gathers assorted debugging information and sends it back to them. In my case, this debugging information proved critical.

A Microsoft technician responded to my plea for help well within their 24 hour goal.

My problem was particularly annoying because there was no error code, thus nothing to search the net for. The error message simply referred to "a problem on your computer". In addition, a review of the update history (click on "Review your update history" in the left side gray stripe) showed no failures at all. I had even checked the system event logs and come up empty.

It turns out that Windows Update has 2.5 activity log files.

In addition to the "update history", there are two plain text log files in the C:\WINDOWS folder. The "half" is a file called "Windows Update.log" which doesn't seem to be used any longer. I checked four XP machines and in each case the file had almost no data and hadn't been updated in a long time.
Update: A reader named Joseph pointed out that this is from an older version of Windows Update.(July 27, 2008)

But the other log file, "WindowsUpdate.log" is a gold mine of information (this file has no spaces in the name). It was included in the debugging information sent to Microsoft and revealed that my problem was an error 0x80004002.

The Fix

Windows Update was resuscitated with the oldest trick in the book, re-installing the software.

Microsoft's first suggestion was to download version 3 of the Windows Update "Agent" (file WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe) to the root of the C disk, then run it with Start -> Run and the following command:

C:\WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe  /wuforce  

The installation was quick and painless. On both computers, this fixed the problem.

The link to this stand-alone version of the Windows Update agent may change over time. A technician at Microsoft suggested getting the software from here. This fix is also offered here, for a similar Windows Update problem.

How widespread is this problem?

There's no way for me to know how widespread this problem is. If you've had problems with Windows Update after installing Windows XP SP3 leave a comment below.

I don't use Automatic Updates, but if you do, and find the yellow shield never goes away, you may be experiencing this problem. To see, try running Windows Update manually from the website to insure it can install patches.

A brief search turned up forum postings at Microsoft.com from others with this problem. This thread, XP SP3 Preventing any other Windows Update Installs, started almost 3 months ago.

The thread includes an email from Microsoft technical support with three possible fixes. One of them, involving re-registering DLLs, was my fallback if the first suggestion didn't work. Scott Dunn from Windows Secrets covered re-registering Windows Update DLLs last September in Stealth Windows update prevents XP repair.

Finally, let me repeat a warning about upgrading to Internet Explorer 7. When you first install IE7, you get a known buggy version. After rebooting, run Windows Update immediately to get the patch shown below

Update July 27, 2008: After installing XP SP3 and all the subsequent patches on three more computers, my best guess is that the problem has to do with the type of license for Windows. On all four machines that were purchased from the same hardware vendor (very different models), Windows Update broke. However, a copy of Windows XP purchased at retail in a shrink-wrapped box had no problems with Windows Update.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

[nenslo]

I'm the first-line tech support at my company and have been loath to patch everyone's PCs with SP3 because of this bug. Our most recent machines have come with SP3 preinstalled and I've found that this issue doesn't affect them all, which just made the process of diagnosing the issue that much more difficult. Thankfully, your post has helped me fix the machines with the bug.

[mhinnewyork]

@nenslo - In an earlier posting on this I speculated that the problem only occurs on machines running IE6. Just a guess on my part, but your observation lends credence to it. New machines with SP3 pre-installed would also have IE7 pre-installed. Michael Horowitz

[Druide_Fr]

I recently built a new computer at home from scratch, and decided to install XP in order to keep the ability to run old games. (I have Vista on my other machines and I'm very satisfied with it, but some games just don't play well on this OS). I purchased a new license of XP, but could not find it with SP3, so I purchased one with SP2 instead. I figured that upgrading to IE7 and SP3 would not be a problem, would it?

Well, it is a problem. I succeeded in upgrading to SP3 and IE7, but now Windows Update keep failing. The symptoms are exactly what is described above, except that when I look into WindowsUpdate.log (thanks for the hint) I see different error messages.

I had originally a problem with upgrading to IE7. This I solved by unregistering and reregistering a couple dll.

Lately the update to Windows .NET 1.1 and 2 kept failling. After a couple hours of work, and trying many of the solutions described here and on the Microsoft support site, I managed to get it to work, more or less (the installation of .NET 1.1 SP1 succeeded, but Windows Update seems not to be aware of that, and keep wanting to reinstall it). In order to do that I had to 1) remove the NET framework programs (from the Add/Remove Program feature) 2) unregister a bunch of dll 3) remove a dll and a directory from c:\windows 4) reregister another bunch of dll 5) go into the register and remove a bunch of keys 6) reboot three times 7) manually download .NET versions 1.1 and 2.0 8) then use Windows Update to get .NET 1.1 SP 1

Just for fun, I installed with success an unrelated Updated (Microsoft Search 4.0, I think it was), and it went without a hitch.

Something is broken in the new Update, and it is a subtle problem. I never repaired my OS, and it was installed clean on a brand new drive, so that's not a factor.

The amount of work and the skill required to maintain my XP version up to date seem to me to be way beyond what can be reasonably expected from the average user. This therefore means that many users will give up and keep their computer out of date, with all the security risks that may represent.

I myself wonder if it was worth the trouble. I mean, how important is Microsoft .NET Framework? I am not going to spend two hours every time they issue a new update.

[daibell]

I've now upgraded around a dozen Dell Vostros to SP3 and about 25% have then had Windows Update fail so it's a serious problem and appears to be random in whether it will fail after the SP3 upgrade. I've used the following fix found on the web and it has worked every time and appears to be the easiest fix I've seen amongst the fixes on the web:

Go to C:\Windows\System32 and find and register Wups2.dll. To do that, right click on it and select 'Open With' then 'Choose Program' and find C:\Windows\System32\Regsvr32.
If you choose to 'Always use the selected program to open this kind of file' then all you will have to do is double click on any .dll to register it. Once you have registered Wups2.dll your problem will disappear.

[kferraro]

Yes, happened twice to me too, and now I am curious about the IE6 link as that is what was being used on both machines that failed. I did the rergistration of the .dll and solved the problem. I am doing my third install right now and it looks like the updater is working correctly, so no rhyme nor reason. Fails on Dell Vostro 1000 and Latitude D600, works on Gateway e2610. You would think MS would get on the ball and fix this.

[pugz3d]

I didn't have this issue with my old gaming system, but did when rebuilding my sister's infected PC. After a clean install from the Dell OEM SP2 disc, it updated 1 batch ok I think, and then it refused to apply .NET 1.1 SP1 and a couple security updates. Reinstalling the agent worked like a charm. Thanks for including the steps instead of just linking to another site. Muchas Gracias.

[bfsamaral]

Recently I decided to clean a laptop and installed a fresh Windows XP Pro SP2. Then I checked for updates and found the SP3. When the installation ended, I checked for updates once again but all of them say that the updates can't be installed.

Even the IE7 gave an error when I tried to update from IE6, both from windows update and manual installer.

Can it be the same problem that you're talking about? Someone know a tip to solve one more Windows issue?

Thanks in advance.

[dcabanaw]

I had similar issues...

It seemed that automatic updates was turned on then off at one point but the service had already downloaded the updates. I turned the service back on updated through it. After that I was able to update windows through the website with other updates that the automatic service had not downloaded.

[spdye]

I need help with one of my systems as it was interrupted in the middle of an update and now it reboots and loops without loading windows. I tried f8 and last known good config, but it does not load windows either. Does anyone know how to recover from this loop. Do I NEED to repair my windows install. will this affect my future automatic updates. I have win xp sp3. thanks

[drfeelgood824]

So i'm not crazy...ha! Ever since I upgraded from SP2-SP3, I have numerous system errors, resulting in explorer.exe never fully loading. There was a system of event logs that attributed problems to DCOM.
These are the updates that won't install, as of 8-26-2008:
Security Update for Windows XP with Windows Media Format Runtime 9.5 and 11 (KB941569)
Security Update for Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0 (KB928365)
Security Update for Windows XP (KB950762)
Security Update for Microsoft XML Core Services 4.0 Service Pack 2 (KB936181)
Security Update for Windows XP (KB951376)
Security Update for Windows XP (KB951698)
Update for Windows XP (KB951978)
Security Update for Windows XP (KB951748)
Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP (KB938127)
Cumulative Security Update for ActiveX Killbits for Windows XP (KB953839)
Update for Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP (KB939683)
Security Update for Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP (KB936782)
Update for Windows Media Format 11 SDK for Windows XP (KB929399)
Security Update for Outlook Express for Windows XP (KB951066)
Security Update for Windows XP (KB946648)
Security Update for Windows XP (KB952954)
Security Update for Windows XP (KB950974)
Update for Windows XP (KB951072)
Update for Windows XP (KB952287)