Windows updates not working

[Mike]

I run into this problem quite frequently, and I've found several different solutions to fix it.

First, make sure the time and date are correct. If it's off by more than a couple hours, the updates could fail.

If the updates are downloading but installation fails, I've found that Dial-A-Fix will fix that problem about 90% of the time.

If that doesn't work, rename the Catroot2 folder to Catroot2old or something like that.

I ran into a very difficult problem the other day....Some updates would download and install, but about 95% of them would fail both the download and the install. SP3 failed to install as well. None of the above procedures helped at all. After much googleing I stumbled across the solution. Open every .cat file in the Catroot (not Catroot2) folder and look for any that are not valid. In this case it was the sp3_uber.cat. Deleted that file and all updates installed just fine.

[Mike]

Found another update problem.

All updates were failing, IE7 failed to install, SP3 failed with "service pack 3 setup canceled". Good times. Tried the usual fixes but none worked... Renamed c:\windows\system32\spupdsvc.exe and c:\windows\system32\spupdsvc.inf to .old in safe mode then installed SP3. Instafix.