Vista - Windows Vista Ultimate SP1: Cannot Get Windows Update To START!

I cannot get Windows Update to start. When I go into Control Panel (classic
view) and double-click on Windows Update, I get the Windows Update screen
but it just hangs there blank. I have to log off of Windows in order to
close the Update screen.

"ChildFree23" <childfree23@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:03FA5282-5573-4B56-A5D2-58DF6E627B9A@xxxxxxHave you tried the Start (orb)> Programs> Windows Update?

I've had this issue before on Vista Home Premium x86. This is what I had to do:

1) Open C:
2) Open folder Windows
3) Open folder SoftwareDistribution
4) Delete all the contents of the Download folder
5) Delete all the contents of the DataStore folder
(for 4 and 5 you may need to reboot your computer before you are allowed to delete them)
6) run Windows Update again. It will think this is the first time you've run it, but you will have NOT lost all the previous updates.

I found that on x86, it's best to download/install each update one at at time, not all of them at once, because it often lead to that error as you are describing. There is clearly something wrong with the x86 Windows Updater, but, this way seems to be a route around it.

Good luck,

Zoloft

>>I cannot get Windows Update to start. When I go into Control PanelYes, I tried that. It got me the same old blank (white) screen.

Please see my reply post to Zoloft for what else I've tried.

I'd appreciate any more suggestions you might have.

ChildFree23

Zoloft;93097 Wrote:Try this...It works for me on Vista Ultimate x86.


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> I've had this issue before on Vista Home Premium x86. This is what II did as specified, though taking it one step further: I boot into Safe
Mode to delete the contents of the Download and DataStore folders, then I
reboot into "normal" mode. Then I can at least get Windows Update to start
via the Start menu.
When I get into Windows Update, I let it go ahead and "gather" updates.
Then I get to the screen where I can either have Windows install all the
updates or choose which updates to install and click on Choose Which Updates
To Install (or whatever it says), so I can install one update at a time.
That's when it hangs. I walked away from my computer for several hours, and
the Windows Update screen was still hung! However, the computer wasn't
frozen -- just Windows Update.

Are there any other tricks you know, or should I keep trying? Also, I don't
know if this is relevant to the situation, but my anti-virus and
anti-spyware, in addition to Windows Defender, is Zone Alarm Security Suite.
I don't think there's a software conflict, though, because Windows Update
worked when I first installed Vista. It just won't work now.

Thank you,
ChildFree23

Perhaps you can try to disable the virus protection and see if that fixes it. It's possible, though I'd think unlikely, that it's finding one of the potential updates to be a virus or other malware, and is blocking it, and therefore, locking up the whole update process. Because some of the updates have the potential to make major changes to your system, it's possible a bad virus definition may be registering it as malware.. .

good luck once again!