Auto Update Not Working?

ihadalife, There have been several threads concerning some problems with the Windows Update Site.It seems like the site is on overload. You may want to read this thread that I listed below. I had to try several times to get the 5 new critical updates and the first time the updates failed. Someone suggested to try one update at a time.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=si_newusers&message.id=9005

There are a couple of completely different issues being discussed here. First of all, the issue of slow download time from the Microsoft web update site is a different issue from those relating to automatic update download/installation problems.

The Microsoft web update page will always show slow download response times immediately after the release of new critical patches.  This is simply due to high traffic volume.

However, the issues relating to automatic updating problems probably are not as easy to explain or troubleshoot.

My automatic updating is set to notify me first of the newly available downloads, then it is necessary to approve those downloads (through a dialogue box that appears) and then the actual downloading takes place in the background.  Often if thes downloads are huge files, or multiple files (as is currently the case), the background downloading process seems to take an inordinate amount of time.

Once the new patches have been downloaded in the background, a new dialogue box appears asking whether I wish to install the files now, or later. At this point, I can choose whether or not to actually install the files. And this process too can take a very, very long time.

Why there seems to be more problems associated with downloading patches through the automatic updating configuration of XP versus the more simple and straightforward process of web updating via the Microsoft web update page is unclear to me. But whenever I do have problems with the automatic updating process, I simply visit the web update page and download/install from that site. Hope this adds a bit of information to this discussion, but it would be nice to have some additional comments from our community experts?

Message Edited by lajolla on 04-15-2004 10:29 AM

Well my auto update Icon at last came out of hiding, then disappeared for the day.

It came back early today, showed 91% and thats the last I have seen of it?

It must have finished by now surely!!

You could use MS qfecheck to see if they are properly installed

Download from

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;282784

To use, click start, run, type qfecheck /l (space between k and /), click OK. That will create a log file computername.log where computername is the name of your computer ( right click my computer, click properties, computername tab; what it says as full computer name).

Alternatively, if you want the result on screen, click start, run, type cmd, click OK. At the prompt in the command widow type qfecheck, press enter. It will show all the hotixes and give info on whether they are properly installed ('current on system' means OK). If any of the new ones show as not properly installed, uninstall from add/remove and go back to Windows update.