Users like me who like to keep the Automatic updates off may have (or in future) encounter a problem during updates. The problem is very critical because it won’t let you update your windows and may also roast your computer if not monitored. How? The problem is like this: you start update process by visiting Microsoft update site and start scanning for updates either Custom or Manual. I prefer manual because I like to choose what to go and what not to go in my computer, anyways whatever you choose the problem starts here. You will notice that the green bar which tells the progress of scanning doesn’t stop even after hours and if you try to click here and there; either there will be no respond or Internet explorer will crash. Computer totally freezes during this endless scan and Taskbar even don’t respond to click. Even if you manage to get to desktop, you cannot do anything.
And what about that roasting? Yes it can happen if your are not around your computer to restart during this havoc, because behind this scan some process start taking lot of CPU usage causing the hang like situation and also taking computer beyond safe temperature limit. Luckily my asus motherboard has auto shutdown feature which saved my computer from roasting.

So why this all error, is Microsoft sleeping? Certainly not, they have released patches to fix this but due to unknown reasons it’s not available for download to normal users. If you manage to get it, good but if not then here’s the way to fix it as told by Microsoft help desk to me and it really work good. There were many useless steps told, but I’ am telling only the sure shot way of rectifying this problem:-

Rename the Software distribution folder, which contains the log files for Windows Updates. If the files in this folder are corrupted, it may prevent the updates from getting installed.

Follow these steps to rename the folder.

1. Click Start and then click Run.
2. Type “Net stop Wuauserv” (without quotes) in the open box and then click on OK.
3. Click Start and then click Run.
4. Type “°%windir%” (without quotes) and click on OK.
5. In the opened folder, rename the folder SoftwareDistribution to OLD.
6. Click Start, Run.
7. Type “Net Start Wuauserv” (without quotes) and then click on OK.
8. Restart the computer, temp. disable any third party firewall and try Windows update.
You should be able to update windows smoothly now !

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Computers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.