Windows update dieing?

[wizard james]

Ok, installed windows xp on a computer i am working on, and tryed to update windows. and it just searchs for ages.. and ages..and after a hour or soo.. it just dies. as iff theres not network.


any idea? Its a Very old motherboard.. but still that wouldnt do anything.. 500mhz k6-2 .. 128,128,64 ram (max for the mobo ..lol)

[redduc900]

Windows Update Troubleshooter
http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/troubleshoot/

Microsoft Update --> "Get help and support"
http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en

... In order to access the above links, you'll need to be running IE as your browser.

[Trombe]

For some reason, sometimes the default windoze firewall won't allow you to access windoze update. Disable it, and update away.

[wizard james]

Ok i dont get any error codes or anyhting, it just says, refresh the browser , clear files and such.. windows firewall is disabled

[Trombe]

Does it have at least Service Pack 1?

[wizard james]

SP2

[dwschoon]

I was installing windows on an old compaq laptop and had these same problems. Happens with both Win2k $ XP. It has a k6-2 500 & 192mb ram. I still havent figured it out.

[Ascii2]

Ok, installed windows xp on a computer i am working on, and tryed to update windows. and it just searchs for ages.. and ages..and after a hour or soo.. it just dies. as iff theres not network.


any idea? Its a Very old motherboard.. but still that wouldnt do anything.. 500mhz k6-2 .. 128,128,64 ram (max for the mobo ..lol)The current v6 version of Windows Update is aweful.

The awefulness relative to this thread:

An Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice) machine may take a minute or to to complete "searching". (Windows 2000)

A Athlon 1.4 GHz machine may take like 5 minutes to finish "searching". (Windows 2000)

The 400 MHz machine (at time of this post) in my signiture takes like 20 minutes to finish "searching". (Windows 2000)

I notice that CPU usage goes to 100% while "searching".

I wonder what is really going on during the "searching". Whatever it is, it seems to be very CPU intensive and probably not very officially documented.

[Skeith]

I have the same problems sometimes on all of my computers. In W2K it happens if you dont have IE6 SP1 installed. This mainly happens when you first install W2K. IE6 SP1 must be installed before AutomaticUpdate will work.
It also happens on my W98SE computer. I find that sometimes just restarting it a couple times helps. I dont do the windows update anymore, I just wait for them to be downloaded by Automatic Update,... that way it works lol

And yes it is CPU intensive, windows update searches the entire system to see what is updated and what needs to be updated, including microsoft software, windows components and all your systems drivers.

My computers range from 466Mhz Celeron running W2K sp4 (my web server), up to 2GHz OCed Sempron running XP pro, my main computer. All 6 of my computers exeriance this. 1 running W98SE, 4 running W2K sp4, and 1 Running XP pro.

[Ascii2]

In W2K it happens if you dont have IE6 SP1 installed.It also happens with IE6 SP1 installed. I install Internet Explorer 6 with Service Pack 1 before connecting to the Internet always after installing Winodws 2000 Professional.

windows update searches the entire systemI really don't like the idea of the entire system being searched. Windows Update really only needs a list of the installed updates, not information about the ontents of the entire system. v4 Windows Update never did this and was far superior (notably way faster for everything Windows Update would officially do).

[AngelfireUk83]

Try this:

Right Click My Computer >> Select Manage >> Services & App >> Services >>

Make sure

Automatic Update is on Automatic
Background Intel Transfer Services is on Manual
Crytographic Services Automatic

These are needed for windows update or in this case now called Microsoft Update. Reboot your PC try again and look under services if the Background Intel Transfer dosn't say it's running right click and select start & put it to automatic for future use under properties. Then restart the browser and run MS update again.

I did this to my mates PC and it worked fine he was using a AMD 1600+ 512mb DDR RAM.

[snafumaster]

I imagine you'd have noticed this before, but you do need to make certain that your time in Windows is correct. It would need to be off by a significant margin, but if it is, you may not be able to sync with the Windows Update server.