This one was a bit of a pain to cut down but I was able to find what I think is the minimum amount of updates needed to be installed in order to get Automatic Updates working again. I've had a few of my clients that needed fresh installs of XP recently. I work for an IT company that specializes in business support.

Problems installing recent updates - Repair Windows Update.

Service registration is missing or corrupt - Reset service registration.

In my case there were three areas that it fixed: net framework 2.0 so you can save time by pre-installing this). This will download the fixit app to attempt to resolve the problem (note that it needs.

Choose the option 'Fix the problem with Microsoft Windows Update that is not working'.

Select the topic 'Install or upgrade software or hardware'.

Make sure the correct windows version etc is selected.

UPDATE: The following fixed the problem for me: There are other suggestions listed at this MS link. Automatic Update Service is started (actually it was started wuforce /norestart Ran net start wuauserv just to be sure Windows 5.

I’ve ran Windows Update Agent setup: WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe.

I’ve stopped Background Intelligent Transfer Service (net stop bits).

I’ve stopped Windows Automatic Update Service (net stop wuauserv).

I’ve downloaded newest version of Windows Update Agent for Windows.

This was happening even after patching to IE8 and SP3 manually. Got this problem too on a VM I'm setting up for IE8 testing for websites.

Atualizar internet explorer 8 windows 7