Getting errors with WindowsUpdate?

You receive an instal­la­tion error on every pack­age down­loaded from Win­dows Update? Here is one workaround (works for friends using Win­dows 2k as well as XP Home and Pro).

So you receive an instal­la­tion error on every pack­age down­loaded from the Win­dows Update web­site? If you expe­ri­ence instal­la­tion errors while apply­ing the patches, e.g., some­thing on the lines of "Win­dows Update Error 0x800A138F" or "To install items from Win­dows Update, you must be logged on as an admin­is­tra­tor or a mem­ber of the Admin­is­tra­tors group",
or "This sys­tem can­not be patched", then fol­low­ing are some handy instruc­tions to get around the annoyance.

  1. First, click on START –> RUN –> regsvr32 iuctl.dll /u –> OK to un-register the library.
  2. Then, use START –> SEARCH to search for Files and Fold­ers. Type iuengine.dll, iuctl.dll into the file search box.
  3. Delete all occur­rences of these two files, delet­ing the ones in %SystemRoot%System32
    (e.g., c:windowssystem32) last.
  4. Close all Inter­net Explorer Windows.
  5. Use CONTROL PANEL –> INTERNET OPTIONS to delete your Tem­po­rary Inter­net
    Files, check­ing Delete all offline con­tent, and press­ing OK
  6. Press the Clear His­tory but­ton and YES to con­firm the deletion.
  7. On the Secu­rity tab, select Trusted Sites. Set the secu­rity to Low and
    Apply the change.
  8. Press the Sites button.
  9. Uncheck Require server ver­i­fi­ca­tion. Type http://*.windowsupdate.microsoft.com. Press Add and OK.
  10. Press OK to close the Inter­net Options dialog.
  11. Use My Com­puter / Tools / Folder Option / View to check show hid­den files
    and folders.
  12. Use Win­dows Explorer to nav­i­gate to %ProgramFiles%WindowsUpdate, gen­er­ally at C:Program FilesWindowsUpdate.
  13. Delete every file and sub-folder, except the V4 sub-folder.
  14. Expand the V4 sub-folder and delete every file and sub-folder except iuhist.xml, which con­tains your Win­dows Update instal­la­tion history.
  15. Dis­able any anti-virus, browser accel­er­a­tors, and down­load util­i­ties that
    might inter­fere with the native oper­a­tion of Win­dows Update.
  16. Try using http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com.
NOTE: Make sure that any proxy server or fire­wall is NOT pre­vent­ing Win­dows Update from work­ing. These instruc­tions have worked for friends with Win­dows 2000, Win­dows XP Home and Win­dows XP Pro.

ADDENDUM: 12 Novem­ber, 2003

A user ("Gul") wrote below in com­ments about get­ting the fol­low­ing error while exe­cut­ing Win­dows Update:

Error IUENGINE Library down­load error and timed out (45085 ms). Will not retry. (Error 0x80072EE2)

The first thing to do would be to look into your Win­dows Update log file. It is most likely located at the fol­low­ing location — 

C:WindowsWindows Update.log

The most recent log entries will be at the bot­tom. Look for any Failed update entries and you will see an error code next to it. The most likely entry you will see is:

Error IUENGINE Deter­min­ing machine con­fig­u­ra­tion (Error 0x8007007E: The spec­i­fied mod­ule could not be found.)

With­out get­ting too con­vo­luted, fol­low­ing are two main rea­sons this could be happening:

  1. Have you installed the MS XML Parser (MSXML) ver­sion 3.0 — SP3? There's a known bug in there that may be caus­ing it.
  2. Sec­ondly, it can also be caused by miss­ing or cor­rupt dynamic link
    library (.DLL) files — CABINET.DLL and URLMON.DLL.

Here's how to try and fix the 0x8007007E prob­lem with Win­dows Update (for Win­dows XP) — 

STEP 1: There are many appli­ca­tions that ship with MSXML 3.0. Unin­stalling any one of those appli­ca­tions on a Win­dows XP sys­tem could poten­tially unreg­is­ter the MSXML 3.0 assem­bly files (msxml3.dll and msxml3r.dll). We should only have to reg­is­ter just the one file. To Do This:

  1. Click Start menu, and then click the Run icon.
  2. In the small box that Opens, type the three let­ters: cmd then click the OK button.
  3. In the com­mand prompt win­dow that just opened (a black back­ground and white text), type the fol­low­ing com­mands, press­ing the ENTER key on your key­board afterwards:
    regsvr32 msxml3.dll
    regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
  4. Reboot and try and Microsoft Win­dows Update again.

If Win­dows Update still gives an error, only then try Step 2:

STEP 2: We will need to rein­stall the lat­est Microsoft XML Parser (MSXML) ver­sion 3.0 SP4. First, down­load it from here:

Some notes:

  • You will need to rein­stall MSXML 3.0 SP4 if you upgraded to Win­dows XP from a com­puter run­ning Win­dows 98, Win­dows ME, Win­dows NT 4.0.
  • Win­dows 2003 server ships with ver­sion 3.0 — SP4 and so you do not need to install it.
  • Occa­sion­ally, setup may need to reboot the com­puter but fails to inform the user. There­fore reboot your machine just in case.
  • To install a local­ized (e.g. Eng­lish) ver­sion of MSXML 3.0 SP4 on a sys­tem dif­fer­ent from the pre­vi­ously installed version/locale (e.g. French) of MSXML 3.0 SP4, then unreg­is­ter the exist­ing instal­la­tion pack­age by exe­cut­ing the fol­low­ing com­mand in a Com­mand Prompt window:
    msiexec /qn /x {45534579-B75B-4A42-953B-2EF8E1DEB4F3}

    Then, install the new local­ized ver­sion of MSXML 3.0 SP4.

  • Reboot, and try Win­dows Update again.

If you still see errors with Win­dows Update, only then move on to Step 3:

STEP 3: Win­dows XP comes with a nifty tool called Sys­tem File Checker (SFC). It scans and ver­i­fies the ver­sions of all pro­tected sys­tem files after you restart your com­puter. How­ever it can some­times miss a prob­lem, so we can run the tool now to replace CABINET.DLL and URLMON.DLL if there is a prob­lem with them. To do this:

  1. Open up DOS prompt, and exe­cute the fol­low­ing command:
    SFC /scannow
  2. Click OK
  3. You must be logged on as a mem­ber of the Admin­is­tra­tors group to run SFC, and you may need your Win­dows XP CD dur­ing this pro­ce­dure if SFC needs to get an orig­i­nal file. Please remem­ber that Win­dows XP can have mul­ti­ple instances of a .DLL file and remem­ber which ver­sion is for which program.
If you want to see a "progress meter" when SFC runs, you need a reg­istry hack. PLEASE do not go mess­ing with your reg­istry if you do NOT know what you are doing!

Assum­ing, you know what you are doing, here is some info that help you:

Sys­tem Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCur­rentVer­sion­Win­l­o­gon]

Value Name: SFC­Show­Progress

Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)

Value Data: (0 = dis­abled, 1 = enabled)

I am pretty sure your prob­lem should have been solved at at least one of the steps above, but please let me know if it doesn't!

26 comments
  1. coulon says: Sep 10, 200312:34 am

    Thanks, Thanks, Thanks !!!!!!!

    About one week to find the good info to cor­rect my prob­lem "admin­is­tra­tors only .…" on w2k.

    Bye.

  2. --== Lekinol ==-- says: Sep 18, 20034:15 am

    My prob­lem was that my sys­tem date was wrong.
    It was set to 2002 instead of 2003.

    I fix it to the cor­rect date and time and it worked fine…

  3. Gul says: Nov 12, 20033:48 pm

    Hi
    I am not able to log onto microsoft win­dows update site. My desk­top crashes as the page loads and then freezes. As well as I am not able to log onto hot­mail ( on inter­net explorer and netscape) nor MSN chat.
    In my win­dows update log it states as fol­lows:
    2003-11-11 09:18:50 14:18:50 Error IUENGINE Library down­load error and timed out (45085 ms). Will not retry. (Error 0x80072EE2)
    Can some­one help me please?

  4. sniptools says: Nov 12, 20037:35 pm

    Hi Gul, that is also a com­mon error. Guess you must have MSXML 3.0 installed? It messes up a few files.

    I have added some sug­gested work-arounds to my notes above. Please check under the sec­tion "ADDENDUM" which I added today (12 Nov 2003).

    Let me know if this helps.

  5. Red says: Nov 12, 200310:57 pm

    This surely solved the prob­lem for me! Thanks!

  6. gul says: Nov 21, 20036:31 am

    Hi there,
    I had reported to ear­lier about how I am not able to load microsoft win­dows update nor be able to log into msn messenger/go on hotmail.com either.
    I have tried doing the fol­low­ing you sug­gested.
    I have win­dows 98 oper­at­ing sys­tem. I have not ever down­loaded MSXML 3.0. Although what I did try doing was install 2.0 ver­sion of it after read­ing your com­ments. It says the spec­i­fied ser­vice already exists.
    Also I tried installing the file CABINET.DLL cause you said it maybe cur­rupted. I have not been able to find that file online. But the other file URLMON.DLL i was able to down­load. If you can guide me into solv­ing this prob­lem i'd appre­ci­ate it!

  7. john says: Dec 05, 20031:46 am

    This error code is not hap­pen­ing in safe mode. I have updated the com­puter to the most cur­rent state using safe mode. I have googled this error code and there are steps to fix the prob­lem. http://www.updatexp.com/0x800A138F.html http://verisign.netscape.com/advisor/ms40.html this web site says that my ssdl is work­ing cor­rectly. There are knowl­edge base arti­cles about this code. Many of them are rein­stalling dll that are asso­ci­ated with inter­net explorer. The prob­lem is related to log­ging into a secure web site. My hot mail does not work. My pay pal does not work. I have paid Microsoft to fix the prob­lem. Sup­port case num­ber SRX 0312 0360 4344. One thing that Dell sug­gested was to install Opera and or Netscape Nav­i­ga­tor. This I have done also. Still no secure web sites come up. https://www.microsoft.com does not work can not locate inter­net server or proxy server. If the web site had no s in the http then it work fine
    HELP ME!! This is my wife’s com­puter. When she is happy I am happy.

    612 812 1052 cell
    612 824 3641 home please call an time day or night.

  8. michael says: Jan 12, 20041:13 pm

    Great tips. I'll link to them on my web site computergripes.com where I have some gripes on WU.

  9. Michael A. Soria says: Mar 05, 200412:21 am

    You'z guys are Win­dows gods! (small 'g') I could not get my Win98SE past the "Admin­is­tra­tors Only" road­block to scan and fetch updates I need. I looked in the MS not-Knowledge Base, fid­dled with ZoneAlarm, unin­stalled ZoneAlarm, and even re-installed iectl.cab per MS sug­ges­tion, which was part of the prob­lem. Since Win­dows Update works fine now, do I really need iectl.cab back?

  10. sniptools says: Mar 05, 200410:12 am

    Hi Michael,

    Glad it works for you! I am not sure about the iectl.cab issue, been a while since I used Win 98, but see if you can do with­out it and if every­thing seems fine and dandy after a month or so, well its bye bye iectl.cab! (I'd keep it in my sys­tem with a new name though, you never know)

    Shanx

  11. Mirkwood23 says: Mar 13, 20044:06 am

    In my case it was the fol­low­ing reg­istry key
    In the reg­istry rename (for exam­ple add an _) to the fol­low­ing key:
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\application/octet-stream

  12. Steve says: Apr 06, 20044:29 am

    Hi I spent days with Win­dows Update problems.…..tried EVERYTHING.….and solved it:)

    Bin your HOSTS file.…..go to http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html ..down­load and it installs for you It works :)

    Regards
    Steve..

  13. Bill Atchison says: Apr 17, 200412:07 am

    I have been able to get the XML 3.0 SP4 Parser installed and work­ing under an local Admin account. How­ever, when I logon with another user ID, the appli­ca­tion does not detect the XML parser install and wants to install it, also when I attempt to install the appli­ca­tion under that ID, it does not install cor­rectly, it seems to me that there is a secu­rity issue, How­ever, I have not been able to locate it.

    Do you hap­pen to have any suggestions?

    Thanks

  14. sridhar says: May 12, 20045:33 pm

    HI..

    i was won­der­ing if any­one could help me out..while surf­ing the net..when i open around 5 to 6 web pages..i cant close all of them when i want to..its says BPO does not quit..could some one help me pls..with this problem..i have win­dows 2000 pro­fes­sional edition..loaded on my computer…

  15. sniptools says: May 12, 20046:10 pm

    Srid­har, what does this have to do with errors on Win­dows Update? Also, what's a BPO? Please be more infor­ma­tive with your info requests.

  16. D Williams says: May 18, 20043:35 am

    In Win­dowsXP Pro I get a date time error which stops the update downloading.This is hap­pen­ing on a Win­dows 2000 network.

    Any help would be very appre­ci­ated. Thank you.

  17. olamoree says: May 21, 20046:10 pm

    Win98SE, IE6.0SP1, fol­lowed easy instruc­tions above and Viola! Now Win­Up­date works! Thanks guys.

  18. nroupha says: Jun 14, 200412:46 am

    Hey guys, need help with win­dows update.

    Run­ning XP Pro with SP1. (This also fails on my 98SE PC)
    After scan­ning for updates I get the fol­low­ing error mes­sage. "An error occurred while scan­ning for dri­ver updates. We are not able to dis­play any updated dri­vers for you sys­tem." Tried every­thing to resolve but no luck. Any ideas???

    Thanks

  19. mds says: Jul 18, 20043:39 am

    I'm hav­ing the same prob­lem as nroupha… I hope to hear from some­body who knows how to resolve this. I'm not really sure how long I've been get­ting this error. It's not like it stands out on the page.

  20. sniptools says: Jul 19, 20042:06 am

    Hi nroupa, mds,

    I do not have access to Win­dows 98 on hand, but the prob­lems with Win­dows Update could be several.

    Some sug­ges­tions:

    (1) Do you guys have any fire­wall installed? Or per­haps some anti-spyware tool that rewrites the HOSTS file to dis­able access to cer­tain domains? I believe Win­dows Update is deliv­ered through some Aka­mai caches ( http://akamai.com ) which may be get­ting blocked.

    (2) Please make sure you have script­ing enabled as that is required. In IE, in Tools –> Options, Advanced, put a tick against 'Dis­able Script Debug­ging' and remove the tick from 'Dis­play a noti­fi­ca­tion about every script error'.

    (3) Are Java and ActiveX installed and enabled?

    (4) What are the Update sites that you are try­ing? Are these enabled in your Secu­rity Zones in IE? To add Win­dows Update to the trusted sites zone, in Tools –> Options –> Secu­rity, click the Trusted Sites icon, and then click Sites. Uncheck the "Require server ver­i­fi­ca­tion" check­box. Make sure the fol­low­ing URLs are listed in the Web Sites list box:

    http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp
    https://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp

    Let me know how it goes!
    Shanx

  21. Cassa says: Aug 20, 20041:41 pm

    I have win­dows XP and like GUL I have the Error num­ber: 0x80072EE2 when try­ing to win­dows update. Please help. I have 2 win­dows update logs on is Win­dows Update.log and the other is WindowsUpdate.log. On the WindowsUpdate.log the last trans­mis­sion reads:

    2004-08-19 23:26:55 – 0500 1016 414 Add header for accept-encoding: xpress suc­ceeded
    2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 1016 414 Send failed with hr = 80072ee2.
    2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 1016 414 SendRequest failed with hr = 80072ee2. Proxy List used: Bypass List used :
    2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 1016 414 Syn­cUp­dates: 0x80072ee2
    2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 1016 414 PT: Can­not recover from fault, origin=SyncUpdates, hr=0x80072ee2
    2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 1016 414 Sync of Updates: 0x80072ee2
    2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 1016 414 WU client failed Search­ing for update with error 0x80072ee2
    2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 1016 414 WU client calls back to search call Win­dow­sUp­date with code Call failed and error 0x80072ee2
    2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 1016 414 WU client com­pleted and deleted call {E9D353B2-A99A-4F70-84FB-13780E87C0E6}
    2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 4880 1318 Oper­a­tion com­pleted due to ear­lier error. (hr=80072EE2)
    2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 4880 1318 Unable to com­plete asyn­chro­nous search suc­cess­fully. (hr=80072EE2)
    2004-08-19 23:28:00 – 0500 1016 414 REPORT EVENT: {7E4E8D94-4163-4CBF-AF72-C363796DDF9B} 17 2004-08-19 23:27:55 – 0500 1 148 101 {00000000 – 0000-0000 – 0000-000000000000} 0 80072ee2 Win­dow­sUp­date Fail­ure Soft­ware Syn­chro­niza­tion Error: Agent failed detect­ing with rea­son: 0x80072ee2
    2004-08-19 23:28:00 – 0500 1016 414 Cre­ated new event cache file at C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\EventCache\{A400F531-F772-472D-BF40-4FBFF1555673}.bin for writ­ing.
    2004-08-19 23:29:34 – 0500 1016 210 ISus­In­ter­nal API failed CClientCallRecorder::DisconnectCall with error 0x8024000c
    2004-08-19 23:29:34 – 0500 4880 1318 ISusInternal::DisconnectCall failed, hr=8024000C
    2004-08-19 23:32:55 – 0500 5528 159c Out of proc data­s­tore is shut­ting down
    2004-08-19 23:32:56 – 0500 5528 159c Out of proc data­s­tore is now inactive

  22. jkue says: Aug 23, 20043:47 pm

    Check out this:
    http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=836941
    Try using google next time ;)

  23. Cassa says: Aug 24, 200412:32 pm

    Thanks it worked. I have 2 fire­walls installed and one of them was the prob­lem fire­wall. After dis­abling this fire­wall I could per­form Win­dows update. This was for error #0x80072EE2.

    Thanks again Jkue. I will keep Google on speed type :)

  24. Keith says: Aug 30, 200411:37 pm

    This seems like a great forum for WU prob­lems and I was won­der­ing if I could ask everyone/anyone for help. I haven't been able to update win­dows at all, get­ting error code 8007007e, and in the WindowsUpdate.log, here's the error info:

  25. johnylog.software says: Nov 07, 20106:28 am

    Hello guys,

    Do you encounter errors while delet­ing files in Win­dows? I'm here to pro­vide a solu­tion. I've been read­ing sev­eral threads on this topic on dif­fer­ent forums where com­puter users were ask­ing about this pop­u­lar error "The file­name you spec­i­fied is not valid or too long".

    My research helped me to find a tool for you guys.

    Its LONG PATH TOOL, a very easy to run but highly pow­er­ful software.

    Fol­low the link to read more about this error.

    http://www.longpathtool.com

  26. jangadbutta says: Jan 13, 20114:52 pm

    Instead of using obso­lete solu­tion from http://www.longpathtool.com, you'd bet­ter visit the web­site of orig­i­nal man­u­fac­turer — http://www.pathtoolong.com — to down­load the lat­est ver­sion of Path Too Long.

Submit comment