I've had this happen a few times, always turn to google, always read some crap that doesn't solve it. Today it was IE7 on one machine and a batch of 14 updates on another...they always fail.

What have you guys done that helps these updates install when they fail to install?

1/18/2007 5:34:07 PM

How are you managing the updates and knowing they fail? Are you running a WSUS server? That has been extremely useful to me ... tons of logging, I can generally search on the KB# and figure out if something is just totally messed up with that update and not to push it.

1/18/2007 5:48:10 PM

im talking just sitting in front of a single computer and trying to run windows update...nothing is managed.

1/18/2007 6:10:09 PM

antivirus disabled?

1/18/2007 7:53:28 PM

yes, no spyware tools installed either. actually in this case its a pretty fresh installation of windows too..just a couple days old.

[Edited on January 18, 2007 at 8:10 PM. Reason : ]

1/18/2007 8:09:04 PM

then i got nothin - that usually does it for me

1/18/2007 8:41:27 PM

http://windowsupdate.62nds.com/

1/18/2007 9:07:35 PM

One of my machines does that, but it was after a virus slipped past symantec. Since then, only automated updates work. All user-initiated updates fail.

^So who's used that?

[Edited on January 18, 2007 at 9:58 PM. Reason : ]

1/18/2007 9:57:55 PM

I'd recommend looking into a WSUS solution if you have 20+ computers in areas which are separated by 10-15+ minutes. Its free, comes with MSDE, and makes managing computers a whole lot easier. The super-duper commercial version is SMS, but WSUS sounds like it would work for you. Essentially, through Group Policy, you can exactly control which updates get applied to which computers and when. We ran the WSUS server with W2K3 on an P3-900mhz, 512MB of RAM server ... it doesn't need much juice to actually distribute the updates (does take forever for the system to update once an administrator hits approve but anyways...). Detailed logs are created which you can go through and track down problems.

Does this help you with the problem at hand? Probably not. BUT, if you could examine 19 semi-similar machines, you could probably troubleshoot why the 1 screwed up while the others were fine.

[Edited on January 18, 2007 at 9:59 PM. Reason : .]

1/18/2007 9:59:03 PM

found this, i think this is the fix i was looking for:

Quote :

"Bring up a command prompt and type 'proxycfg -d' to clear the proxy cache (if you are using one). Type 'net stop wuauserv' to stop the automatic updates service. Open Windows Explorer and browse to C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution. Delete the contents of this folder. Go Back to the command prompt and type 'net start wuauserv' to restart the automatic updates. Now retry Windows update. "

1/19/2007 10:31:44 AM

I have had this happen to me a few times. Most of the time, rebooting the computer solves the issue. However, there was a time that it would not let me do it even after reboot. The specific update I was having problems with was the required one to get all the other updates to download (I think). I did a search for it on the M$ site and then downloaded it manually.

1/19/2007 11:21:07 AM

ok so that fix didnt work

any ideas?

1/19/2007 5:48:04 PM

What error message are you getting?

1/19/2007 8:03:58 PM

Also, what update are you trying to get?

1/19/2007 8:28:40 PM

lately its been IE7

1/20/2007 11:20:22 AM

Quote :

"What error message are you getting?"

1/20/2007 5:45:20 PM

^haha i cant stand that shit either...when you try to help someone but they dont even answer your question

1/20/2007 5:56:59 PM

i dont get an error message

the shit fails...it says the updates failed to install.

if i had got a specific error message i'd probably just be able to google it wouldnt i.

1/20/2007 6:25:06 PM

point synapse

1/20/2007 6:28:38 PM

If you do a search for the update on the Microsoft site (I think you can just do the KB number) it will sometimes have an option to manually download it.

If you have like 30+, this isn't a good option. However, if it is just a few you can manually do them. Or if it is a key update, downloading it manually and then downloading the rest the normal way may work.

1/21/2007 12:51:08 AM

Tried looking in the following log file?
c:\Windows\Windowsupdate.log

1/21/2007 7:24:57 AM

Try re-registering the .dll files associated with Windows updates.

Go to command prompt and type: regsvr32 msxml3.dll

Then try to do the updates again.

If that doesn't work then go to the command prompt and type in the following:

stop bits
stop wuauserv
regsvr32 atl.dll
regsvr32 jscript.dll
regsvr32 msxml3.dll
regsvr32 softpub.dll
regsvr32 wuapi.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32 wucltui.dll
regsvr32 wups.dll
regsvr32 wuweb.dll
start bits

then try windows updates again.

1/21/2007 4:01:54 PM

^,^^ thanks guys, i'll give them a try

1/22/2007 3:54:51 PM