Windows Vista Forum / General Technical / Vista Technical / Repairing Windows Update / Latest Posts

RE: Repairing Windows Update

kelli — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:06:01 GMT

[quote]Delete the following file:

C:\windows\winsxs\pending.xml[/quote]

My computer doesn't even have this file.

Any other suggestions on how to get Windows to update? I've had my computer less than 3 months and in the last few days the little icon appeared down the bottom telling me "Windows can't check for updates" yet when I force it to search for updates it searches for hours and hours, I don't even get an error code. I've searched the internet high and low and have found no solution. The last update Windows did was 7 April, 2008 (Service Pack 1 was installed on 30 March, 2008).

HELP!!!

RE: Repairing Windows Update

WolChad — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:26:16 GMT

[quote][b]WAW8 (1/23/2008)[/b][hr]If you run into the problem where Windows Update refuses to install updates, here is a solution Jason found on some other sites which seems to work pretty good if you do everything right! Apparently Microsoft knows this is a problem and has no solution but this works!

The issue is that the WUA 3.0 (7.0.6000.374) upgrade is corrupted,
essentially the system reports the WUA to be 7.0.6000.374 but the files on
the disk are still from the old version (you can check some of the DLLs like
wups.dll, wuaueng.dll etc... in the windows\system32) ... and you cannot
install the WUA 3.0 even manually.

Delete the following file:

C:\windows\winsxs\pending.xml

Since Windows security will not allow you to do this, hereunder the
procedure to take ownership of the file:

Run a command prompt with "Run as Administrator".
Type in the following commands:

takeown /f C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml

cacls C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml /G :F

Then delete the file

del C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml

Reboot the machine, then manually install the WUA 3.0 downloadable from
here: http://download.windowsupdate.com/v7/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe

This should fix the Error 80073712 when the other solutions do not work.

BE AWARE that renaming C:\windows\winsxs\pending.xml might have
unrecoverable impacts on your Vista installation

NOTE:

As a result of this comand:

takeown /f C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml

your user name will display which you can use in place in
this command (drop the < and >, one space after G and no space after
):

cacls C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml /G :F

If the del command works (no errors displayed) you can go on and do the
download of Windows Update.

[Update]: There are reports that Comodo firewall is preventing Windows Update from working. You not only have to disable Comodo; you have to completely uninstall it.
Check to see if you have Comodo installed or running.[/quote]

I couldn't get past the first set of directions takeown .... The file seems to be missing. Is the service pack 1 really worth all this trouble?

RE: Repairing Windows Update

SillyQuestions — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:08:42 GMT

I tried this fix, but I get an error stating the file cannot be found. Thought I did it right :shrugsshoulders:

The Hp techs (all 4 of them) pretty much said I had to do a restore. Its my daughters, so would rather not have to. Anything new on this? Thoughts on what I did wrong?

TIA

RE: Repairing Windows Update

WAW8 — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:27:17 GMT

Peter K:

Thanks for the tip. I moved your post to the Tips & Tweaks forum. We have that forum for posts just like the one you did.

Also, please do not posts links to ways to remove UAC -- we don't encourage that.

RE: Repairing Windows Update

mikeody — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:28:32 GMT

Some time back I reported that Comodo firewall was preventing Vista updates. It seemed that diisabling Comodo was inneffective and that a complete uninstall was necessary before the Vista updates could be downloaded and installed.
I have just installed the latest Comodo from their website and can now report that Vista updates can be downloaded and installed under this new version WITHOUT uninstalling Comodo. Hurrah !

RE: Repairing Windows Update

WAW8 — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:52:17 GMT

Thanks for the feedback. I've seen reports on Comodo being responsible for this but your post indicated you had disabled it. I've updated the "pinned" section of the post to alert others about Comodo.

RE: Repairing Windows Update

mikeody — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:13:36 GMT

All sorted out and I now have 47 new Updates installed !
The issue didnt turn out to be Office but Comodo.
I had disabled all aspects of Comodo but that wasnt good enough. It needs to be fully unistalled - after which the Update Agent installed all OK and everything worked from then on. Have reinstalled Comodo and I am smiling.
Thanks for help anyway.

RE: Repairing Windows Update

mikeody — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:04:46 GMT

Unfortunately didnt fix my problem though.
I uninstalled Office, turned off Comodo, AVG, and Windows Firewall and tried again.
Same error.
Its amazing really that this is NOT a piece of third party software trying to update a Microsoft OS but something as fundamental as Microsoft VISTA updates !
I really just dont know where to go from here. Sure I can scrub everything and start over again but even then I dont really have any guarantees that the bug-free install from my second PC [3.0 HT P4] will be repeated on this machine [Core 2 Duo].
I wonder whether SP1 will sort it all out ? Guess I might just have to wait and see.

RE: Repairing Windows Update

WAW8 — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:59:48 GMT

It appears to. There are reports that Office is partially responsible for the installer error your getting.

RE: Repairing Windows Update

mikeody — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 16:50:07 GMT

Yes,
Office 2007 Professional. It is NOT on the PC that had the successful update.
Will that make a difference ?

RE: Repairing Windows Update

WAW8 — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 09:31:50 GMT

Do you have either of the following on the failing machine: Windows Office or Zune?

RE: Repairing Windows Update

mikeody — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:56:36 GMT

Some thoughts and questions on the non-updating of VISTA.

One of my PCs [no firewall or virus engine running] is a clean install with only the bare OS loaded.
I started to follow your instructions but found I had no c:\windows\winsxs\pending.xml file at all !
So I downloaded the ...WindowsUpdateAgent... file and installed it. All went OK and I can now download updates. Thanks.

On my second PC however I have tried the same but failed. Halfway through 'Copying Files' it stops with a message of 'Install failed Error No 0x80070643'.

Both systems came from the same VISTA install disk and as far as I can tell are the same except the second one has a lot of applications loaded plus related data. I have turned off Windows Firewall, Comodo Firewall, and AVG Anti Virus.

Have you any thoughts on where to from here except to do [yet another] clean install of VISTA and try again to install the...WindowsUpdateAgent... file and if successful reload all my application software and data ?

Incidentally the wups.dll file is showing version 6.0.6000.16386 but there is also a wups2.dll file with the same version number.
Thanks.

RE: Repairing Windows Update

WAW8 — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:25:28 GMT

OK - when MS makes a statement like "unrecoverable impacts" (their wording, not mine), what they mean is that it's likely you'll have to reinstall Vista from scratch.

So ... your choices are either (1) try to repair the Windows Update catalog and run the risk of trashing Vista to the point that you have to completely reinstall it from scratch, or (2) not get Windows Updates anymore.

The second used to not be such a problem because you could get updates from a site known as AutoPatcher. But MS sicked their lawyers on the site and it got shutdown. So, now, you have to go to MS to get the updates. Plus, I believe that Vista SP1 is going to be distributed solely as an update, so there may not be any other way to get SP 1.

Yeah, I know this is really "bad form" from MS. They should have produced a downloadable script, that could then be run in safe mode, which would automatically repair the Windows Update catalog without any ill effects -- but they haven't.

RE: Repairing Windows Update

redbird985 — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:41:36 GMT

Goddess,
Can you tell me [u]what kind of impacts[/u] on the installation that would be. I am deathly afraid of screwing up my computer, because as you know from all my posts that you help me with..newbie here. I finally got the Administrators Password reset, (am currently waiting oh help with making a recovery disk), so now I want to move on to fixing this update problem that I also have.
Failed updates: KB943899 - KB943411 - KB941568 - KB941569 - KB942624 - KB943078, and a few more!
Will following this repair mess up something that I can't fix?:unsure:
Thanks Much!

Repairing Windows Update

WAW8 — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:08:39 GMT

If you run into the problem where Windows Update refuses to install updates, here is a solution Jason found on some other sites which seems to work pretty good if you do everything right! Apparently Microsoft knows this is a problem and has no solution but this works!

The issue is that the WUA 3.0 (7.0.6000.374) upgrade is corrupted,
essentially the system reports the WUA to be 7.0.6000.374 but the files on
the disk are still from the old version (you can check some of the DLLs like
wups.dll, wuaueng.dll etc... in the windows\system32) ... and you cannot
install the WUA 3.0 even manually.

Delete the following file:

C:\windows\winsxs\pending.xml

Since Windows security will not allow you to do this, hereunder the
procedure to take ownership of the file:

Run a command prompt with "Run as Administrator".
Type in the following commands:

takeown /f C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml

cacls C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml /G :F

Then delete the file

del C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml

Reboot the machine, then manually install the WUA 3.0 downloadable from
here: http://download.windowsupdate.com/v7/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe

This should fix the Error 80073712 when the other solutions do not work.

BE AWARE that renaming C:\windows\winsxs\pending.xml might have
unrecoverable impacts on your Vista installation

NOTE:

As a result of this comand:

takeown /f C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml

your user name will display which you can use in place in
this command (drop the < and >, one space after G and no space after
):

cacls C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml /G :F

If the del command works (no errors displayed) you can go on and do the
download of Windows Update.

[Update]: There are reports that Comodo firewall is preventing Windows Update from working. You not only have to disable Comodo; you have to completely uninstall it.
Check to see if you have Comodo installed or running.