Fixing XP's broken Windows Update

Windows Update not working? This might fix it!

Here is the scenario: You've got a computer you've just re-installed all of Windows XP. Like a good computer professional, before turning it back over to the client, you are going to apply all the service packs, patches, and updates that Microsoft might want the system to have.

Except when you go to update.microsoft.com (or windowsupdate.microsoft.com, or windowsupdate.com, or whatever URL that redirects you to the Microsoft update engine), all you get is a referral to article 2497281 that says you should try a few steps manually.

I'm going to jump ahead quite a bit - I tried all the things suggested in that article, then tried other things others found and did, and had no success.

Please don't try my fix-it procedure first! Try the Microsoft recommended path. If your scenario matches mine, then come on in - the water is fine! This should fix your windows update issue!

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Problem Details

I was setting up a couple of notebooks with new hard drives and fresh installs of Windows XP Professional as that's what their restore disks & COA (Certificate of Authenticity) said they were sold with. One was a restore disk for XP, the other was a restore disk for XP with SP1 already integrated. Yes, they were older notebooks. But the price was right at $0/each and it was for a good cause.

The first system was a Gateway, the second was a Dell - but based on what I've read about others with this problem, it can be any system at all. In the first case, I put in a CD with XP SP3 to do all the updates at once. No good, windows update was broken. In the other case, I tried a small step - first to XP SP2, then up to XP SP3 - and it was broken as well.

Here is the the screen that comes up - click on any thumbnail image to bring up the full size version:

They suggest a lot of things - like turning on automatic updates, then running the command to force updates now (wuauclt /detectnow), and none of those things worked for me. Others suggested manually downloading the Windows Update Client and forcing the install by running it from the command line with /wuforce to force the update to happen, some said they were calling Microsoft support, and other things - none of which fixed the problem for my two laptops.

What is happening

The short version is the install for Windows Update for some reason isn't installing all the files it needs to run. It is leaving a couple of older files as dust bunnies, and the whole update process is failing due to the new code trying to talk to an older .DLL file. The fix, until Microsoft fixes it for real, is to manually copy the files. A catch is those files are in use, so you'll have to do some DOS prompt type commands to make it so you can update those files.

Don't worry - I'll walk you through everything.

What you will need:

Download a copy of the Windows Update 3.0 install package. I found it at:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=91237

or, I also found a pointer to this download at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932494

That and some bravery to do some command prompts and you'll be all set!

Fixing Windows Update!

With the link downloaded, run it but don't go through the install. A screen will come up that shows what directory the files are expanding into - note that directory name or at least the first 2-3 characters of it as you'll see here:

Windows Update Agent expanding all its files

So in this example, which I captured after I'd already done the procedure, the files were expanded into the directory c:\41a<other stuff deleted>. We don't care about all that stuff, just enough of it we can find that directory. When all the files are expanded, you'll see the next screen about installing the update agent:

Windows Update Agent install screen

DO NOT PRESS NEXT OR CANCEL YET! Just let that window alone. If you cancel or hit next, your temporary files will be deleted before you can copy them to someplace else.

Now go to your DOS prompt by hitting Start->Run->CMD.EXE

Go into the directory listed by typing cd \ThoseFirstTwoOrThreeCharacters and then hitting the <TAB> key to auto-complete the rest of the directory name. So in the example above, you would type:

cd \41a<TAB><ENTER>

Note: <TAB> represents the tab button, not a less than sign, capital T, capital A, capital B, greater than sign. Same thing with <ENTER>

You'll now be at a DOS prompt inside the directory with all those nice files expanded.

Make a directory to save them:

mkdir c:\junk

Then copy the files to that junk directory:

copy *.* c:\junk

If you've already installed this update prior to searching and finding this article, you can hit the CANCEL button in the Windows Update Agent Installer window and completely skip the next paragraph.

If you haven't installed the update yet, hit Next and let the update proceed forward. If Microsoft fixes the problem, you should be able to go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com and see everything working nicely. If it doesn't work yet, continue on.

In my case, the directory created with c:\0e6b22a4344a25.... so you'll see my screen shots reflect that directory tree. Plus I made my temporary directory C:\temp\wu - it really doesn't matter where you copy them, as long as it is a place you just created so nothing else is inside as you'll be wiping that temporary location out at the end of this.

Stop the auto-update service by typing:

net stop wuauserv

Stopping Windows Auto Update

I ran this from the windows\system32 directory, but you can run it from anywhere.

Here are fragments of the two directories, side by side. On the left are the good files as they come from Microsoft. On the right are the files as installed in the c:\windows\system32 directory. I highlighted the two files that weren't updated by the installer with red arrows. These have to be copied by hand.

On the left you can see wuauserv.dll is dated 8/6/2009 and has a size of 22,744 - on the right it is older, 4/14/2008 and only 6,656 bytes.

Similar item with wuweb.dll - new on the left, old on the right. Both these files need to be copied from your temporary directory to c:\windows\system32

Since you are inside your temporary directory, you can type the first line and copy wuweb.dll:

copy wuweb.dll c:\windows\system32

If you get an error saying the file is in use, close all your Internet Explorer windows. The Windows Update website likely has one of those DLL files open.

You can see I had that error with wuauserv.dll - so for that, I had to rename the file first, then I could copy it. So type:

rename c:\windows\system32\wuauserv.dll wuauserv.dll.old
copy wuauserv.dll c:\windows\system32

Right after that, without even a reboot, I was able to go to Windows Update and it worked!

The system did a full suite of updates, updated its updating engine, and is running fine.

When you are done, you can delete that temporary directory you saved all the files into.

Conclusion

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If you found this helpful (or not), please send me a brief email -- one line will more than do. If I see people need, want, and / or use this kind of information that will encourage me to keep creating this kind of content. Whereas if I never hear from anyone, then why bother?

I can be reached at:
das (at-sign) dascomputerconsultants (dot) com

Enjoy!

David Soussan