When Windows Update Services goes bad there are any number of errors that may occur. In the worst condition a corrupted WUS may well bring down your entire system. Here are some troubleshooting tips for how to diagnose and solve corrupted WUS problems:
One of the most troubling potential issues is a lockup of WUS on boot. Frequently this will bring up a notice that the Windows Update failed (as a "subcomponent" of SVCHOST.EXE). When this happens it will present a dialog to send a message to Microsoft. If you click to send the error message to Microsoft your machine then locks up and cannot be accessed without a reboot.
The following steps may assist you in fixing this issue:
- DO NOT click the "send message to Microsoft" ok button. Shut the machine down (Start/Shut down/Shut Down/OK).
- When you bring your machine up repeatedly hit the F8 key on the keyboard. If you get to the normal windows boot screen you didn't hit it soon enough. If you get a menu offering you various boot modes, select "SAFE MODE"
- You will still need to login - do so with a user account that has local administrator privileges on your workstation.
- Once the machine is booted Choose Start/Run/Services.msc
- Find the item that is marked "Automatic Updates". If it is marked as "started" right click on it and choose "Stop".
- Close services.
- Open My Computer
- Go to Tools/Folder Options/View tab and be sure the following options are set accordingly:
- Display the contents of system folders is CHECKED
- Show Hidden Files and Folders is CHECKED
- Hide Extensions for known file types is UNCHECKED
- Hide Protected Operating System Files is UNCHECKED (You will receive a warning - proceed to unhide the OS files anyway)
- Press OK on the Folder Options
- Open C:\Windows
- Locate and click ONCE on the "SoftwareDistribution" folder. Right click SoftwareDistribution and choose RENAME. New name should be SOLD (or anything else you'll remember). Press Enter to save the new name.
- Reboot the machine
- Run Windows Update by going to http://update.microsoft.com . You may need to reinstall some components. Be sure it's not asking you to "upgrade" to Update. If it is - go ahead and do upgrade to UPDATE first, then do a normal Windows update.
This problem is most often caused by an interrupted installation, or a corrupted installation patch download file. Either will be fixed using this method. If this does NOT work you would need to work on reregistering the Windows Update dll files, which I'll cover later.