When Windows Update Hangs

[Seeker47]

I have an older laptop with W2K SP4 on it, which has a rather longstanding problem. With perhaps as many as half of the MS patches or hotfixes that have come down the pike over the last couple years, they get downloaded and verified, but then hang during the install process. There is no pattern I can discern as to which proceed to completion and which do not. It does seem that the odds decrease if more than 3 or 4 updates are selected at a time, but that could be a red herring.

When a KB____ whatever update install hangs, I have to go into Taskmanager and kill Windows Update. When I do so, I notice that there are three instances of WUAUCLT.Exe running in the Process List. (There is only one showing right after booting up.) Might this be a clue ?

A tech contact suggested to me that some of the patches or hotfixes may have Net Framework (one or another version of them) as a pre-requisite, thereby accounting for the hangs. Nice theory, but I have a couple desktop system boot partitions of W2K-SP4 that still have no Net Framework, and just never have this problem. I finally put NF 1.1 on this laptop, which does not seem to have made any difference.

I've Googled this subject up and down, without finding anything particularly illuminating.

Someone is for sure going to suggest a reformat from scratch, but that's a non-starter: even if I was willing to devote a couple weeks to it (and I'm NOT), I couldn't duplicate the particular lineup of apps etc. that is on this laptop (which I inherited -- No System Disks for it). I would much rather never connect to the internet with it again than do that ! Full A-V and antispyware scans have been done on it, and it's clean.

If you've overcome this sort of glitch before -- without having to reinstall Windows -- I would very much like to hear about it.

[ocgw]

Try re-registering Windows Update

These commands usually work

Re-register the Windows Update DLL with the commands below
Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
Type the following commands. Press ENTER after each command.
regsvr32 wuapi.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32 wucltui.dll
regsvr32 wups.dll
regsvr32 wups2.dll
regsvr32 wuweb.dll

Attempt to run Windows Update

if that doesn't work do a full re-register

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistawu/thread/77cec30e-a3a5-4d16-817c-6c09799ceab1

General Windows Update Troubleshooting

The following outlines how to stop services pertaining to Windows Update, rename system folders, register related DLL files, and then restart the previously mentioned services. This troubleshooting generally applies to all Windows Update related issues.

Stopping services pertaining to Windows Update

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as Administrator.
2. If you receive a notification from User Account Control simply click Continue.
3. At the command prompt, type the following, commands and then press ENTER after each command.

net stop wuauserv
net stop bits
net stop cryptsvc

4. Please do not close the Command Prompt window.

Renaming folders pertaining to Windows Update

1. At the command prompt, type the following commands, and then press Enter after each command:
2. ren %systemroot%\System32\Catroot2 Catroot2.old
3. ren %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
4. Please do not close the Command Prompt window.

Registering DLL’s pertaining to Windows Update

1. Please copy and paste the following text into a new Notepad document, and save the file as WindowsUpdate.BAT
2. If saved correctly the icon will change from a Notepad file to BAT file which has two blue cogs as its icon.
-or-
3. You can manually type each command at the command prompt:

regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\vbscript.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\mshtml.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\msjava.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\jscript.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\msxml.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\actxprxy.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\shdocvw.dll /s
regsvr32 wuapi.dll /s
regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll /s
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll /s
regsvr32 wucltui.dll /s
regsvr32 wups2.dll /s
regsvr32 wups.dll /s
regsvr32 wuweb.dll /s
regsvr32 Softpub.dll /s
regsvr32 Mssip32.dll /s
regsvr32 Initpki.dll /s
regsvr32 softpub.dll /s
regsvr32 wintrust.dll /s
regsvr32 initpki.dll /s
regsvr32 dssenh.dll /s
regsvr32 rsaenh.dll /s
regsvr32 gpkcsp.dll /s
regsvr32 sccbase.dll /s
regsvr32 slbcsp.dll /s
regsvr32 cryptdlg.dll /s
regsvr32 Urlmon.dll /s
regsvr32 Shdocvw.dll /s
regsvr32 Msjava.dll /s
regsvr32 Actxprxy.dll /s
regsvr32 Oleaut32.dll /s
regsvr32 Mshtml.dll /s
regsvr32 msxml.dll /s
regsvr32 msxml2.dll /s
regsvr32 msxml3.dll /s
regsvr32 Browseui.dll /s
regsvr32 shell32.dll /s
regsvr32 wuapi.dll /s
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll /s
regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll /s
regsvr32 wucltui.dll /s
regsvr32 wups.dll /s
regsvr32 wuweb.dll /s
regsvr32 jscript.dll /s
regsvr32 atl.dll /s
regsvr32 Mssip32.dll /s

Restarting services pertaining to Windows Update

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as Administrator.
2. If you receive a notification from User Account Control simply click Continue.
3. At the command prompt, type the following, commands and then press ENTER after each command.

net start wuauserv
net start bits
net start cryptsvc

exit

4. Now please check for updates using Windows Update to see if the issue has been resolved.

more update repair instructions

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910336/en-us

ocgw

peace

[Seeker47]

Thanks, OCGW. I will work my way through your suggestions when I get the chance.

This particular laptop is used infrequently, but still has a role to play among the systems I run. After checking through the Win Update logs -- I only went back as far as early 2006 -- I must revise some of what I said in the original post, in case it makes a difference. The actual failure rate works out to be something more like 1 in 4. Some of those updates failed a number of times, over this period. Some of them that I thought to be failures were actually logged as "Canceled", meaning that some update ahead of it in the queue failed, and Win Update hung, so it never proceeded beyond that point.

Yesterday, in different sessions, I put on 6 out of 6, then 11 out of 12, then another 2 out of 5. Net Framework 1.1 failed to go on the first time, but subsequently did, along with two security updates for it. Two updates -- ending in __9059 and __4392 (I've been trying to write this stuff down, but did not get all of it) -- that had failed several times in the past finally went on to completion. Others, like
KB941569, 952069, 974112, 954600
always seem to fail. The monthly "Malicious Software Removal Tool" update (KB # does not change ?) has gone on with some month's releases, but not others. I could do some online searches for each of those numbers, and probably come up with some issues unique to each, but this whole thing seems at the same time quite specific and kind of random -- rather than something that is wrong with this laptop or with this W2K across the board. Even more than before, this has me thinking in terms of pre-requisites, or patches that cannot "take" unless applied in a certain order, after other items that must be present first. It would be nice if Win Update had a better (automated) advisory about this, if and when it may be the case.

I'm not remembering this clearly, but think there is a way to download the patches a la carte, then try to install them locally, much as you could do with a Service Pack. I probably tried this in the past, but it can't have worked out much better or I would have made some notation about it for future reference.