Microsoft Updates. Won't work.

[Ancient Observer]

I have dug out my daughters pc, which has not been used for some time, (about 6 months) to see whether or not it is worth doing some cleaning up and keeping as a spare.
PC is an Advent (Brit PC World brand) 5302. Running everyone's favourite - Vista. Has an Intel core duo, T5550, with 2gb ram and lots of hard drive space.
To do the updates, I've put in a cable to the modem router, although the wi-fi said it was working.
Most things are working OK. The battery is u/s, so it is plugged in to the mains. The clock had survived, (and the pc clocks don't always survive a totally dead battery in my experience). The BT McAfee product is cheerfully updating itself right now. CC cleaner updated itself quickly and works fine.
However, when I try to access M/S update, it tells me that "update cannot currently check for updates as the service is not running".
I've tried going direct to the website, but that just tells me to go back to Start/Windows update.
I've done the helpdesk favourite of turning it off and back on.
Any ideas why Windows Update won't update?
Thanks
AO.

[Milo Minderbinder]

this could turn into a right plate of spaghetti....

try this first

Windows Update Not Working. (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555989)

[Ancient Observer]

Milo,
er, thanks, I think. That one is beyond me. I'm currently exploring whether or not the Intel driver needs to be changed/updated. The social.technet.microsoft.com forums suggest it might be that. Sounds unlikely to me......

[green granite]

Probably wont help but have you tried running the updater from the control panel rather than the start menu, just in case there's a corruption in the start menu shortcut?

[Ancient Observer]

No, that will not do it. Apparently I need AHCI or RAID to use that, and I can't find them in the depths of device manager.
Ho-hum.
Whoops, sorry GG, I was not responding to you - just adding to my earlier comment.

I've just tried your suggestion, GG, and it won't "let me in". I just get the whirly thing when I try to get in that way.
I'll shut the pc down and try again when it wheezes its way back to life.

No. Turned off pc and turned it back on again. The Control panel route doesn't help. Thanks for the thought. Ended up with same old message. Still thinking and googling.

[green granite]

In C: \windows\system32 the following files appear to be involved with updates

wuapi.dll
wuapp.exe
wuauclt.exe
wuaueng.dll
wucltux.dll

Although those are W7 file names I suspect Vista may well be the same. If you have another Vista MC you could try copying the files across having first renamed the existing ones using the word old at the beginning so that you can restore them if need be.

PS you'll need to enable 'show hidden files and folders' option.

[Ancient Observer]

Thanks for your help. I am now at the "fed-up with this" stage.

SWMBO is playing with her ipad and cockily saying that we do not need another pc, not even daughter's old one.
"Ah", I reply, "but if I can make this work, I will not have to buy my own ipad". ......

(Said daughter has, of course, a much newer, all singing all dancing pc)

I think I'll go and have a drink and come back to this tomorrow. (Possibly even avrio, which is manana, but without the sense of urgency.)

Thanks, all.

[Milo Minderbinder]

If your daughter no longer needs it, and doesn't need the data on it, then just do a factory reset and start again
That way you know its a clean machine with no accumulated teenagers junk on it - and any issues like this should get fixed in the process

Trying to untangle windows update issues really is a PITA
That fix I flagged up is just the beginning....it gets worse after that

[vulcanised]

I did wonder, given what you said about the machine and its possible future, why bother with updates?

[Ancient Observer]

Update.....

Huh!

"Basic" level ppruning............
Greatly helped by much too much Sauvignon Blanc.

BT McAfee taken out, MS Security Essentials put in, and now it is downloading 82 updates.........(6 months worth)

I have no idea what Mc Afee did, as it has no obvious impact on 2 other boxes that have it on, but maybe the collective action of the large number of earlier mcAfee updates stopped MS updates.


Daughter would quite like her Office files, her (awful) -(godawful?) music and a few photos. Despite asking her for ages about whether or not she wants to copy stuff over to my 2TB back-up, she only wants a back up now that I've got her old pc to work. Daughters, huh!


I only wanted the updates for security reasons as I'll only use the mobile pc for casual internet browsing, reading, and a tiny bit of Office work. Most of the Office work gets done on this desktop pc and daughters' pcs.

[Ancient Observer]

Thanks all for your help.

It did turn out that removing BT McAfee and installing M/S Essentials solved the problem.
I have no idea why. I could find no reference to that for this specific problem on other websites, but as ppruners know, some folk are very anti-McAfee. I just use it cos BT gives it free, and cos it has (so far) been OK for my pc.s. - Although my new one only has pprune recommended M/S Essentials and firewall. I also seldom use an admin i.d.

Once I've "saved" daughter's stuff, I will do as Milo suggests and have a factory reset......but as I've never done that before I'll worry about that next week.