Well, you'll figure it out unless you give up.

If the windows 2000 machines are not looking for updates.microsoft.com,
but for a local SUS server which does not exist, you get "unable to connect."

Check the group policy to be sure Specify intranet is not Enabled. Also
see if your sample machines are misconfigured with these keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Win dows\WindowsUpdate
WUServer="http://<YourServer>"
WUStatusServer="http://<YourServer>"

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Win dows\WindowsUpdate\AU
UseWUServer=dword:00000001

You sure do *not* want to see " 1 " under UseWUServer.

Must machines authenticate to the proxy server to get out?
If they must, and XP can handle it, try updating a problem
W2K machine to SP4 through WU to see if that works.

"Lude" <Lude@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:E4218B22-2181-48A8-B2CD-963C71AEC763@microsoft.com...
> Thanks for the repley Michael. The only reason I dont think that
> authentication is the problem is because auto updates appear to be working
> fine on our Windows XP machines; this could be because they are newer
> installs than our old windows 2000 installs.
>
> "Michael Jennings" wrote:
>
>> I found this on page 54 of the white paper:
>> "Automatic Updates will not be able to contact the Microsoft Windows Update
>> servers on the Internet through a proxy server that requires authentication."
>>
>> I found this on page 79 (the appendix):
>>
>> EventID=106
>> Severity=Error
>> SymbolicName=MSG_MISSING_WWWROOT
>>
>> If authentication is your problem, you might need to set up a SUS server
>>
>> The white paper is available for download at this link:
>> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...eployment.mspx
>>
>> "Lude" <Lude@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:4881C229-2A25-4AD5-8F6E-A559BFD11B70@microsoft.com...
>> >I just realized that his was in event log of 2 of the problem computers:
>> >
>> > Event ID 16, Source: Automatic Updates
>> >
>> > Unable to connect: Windows is unable to connect to the Automatic Updates
>> > service and therefore cannot download and install updates according to the
>> > set schedule. Windows will continue to try to establish a connection.
>> >
>> > For more information, see Help and Support Center at
>> > http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > "Lude" wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hello,
>> >>
>> >> I work for a company with about 150 Windows 2000 computers needing Automatic
>> >> Updates. We have have the AU turned on via group policy and they are
>> >> scheduled to download and install everyday at 12pm. The problem is that they
>> >> aren't downloading at all. The AU icon never appears at anytime. We have
>> >> a proxy server which I thought was the problem but I've specified the proxy
>> >> server with the proxycfg.exe command. I checked the WindowsUpdate.log on 2
>> >> of the computers; on one of them the most recent entry is from the year 2002
>> >> and the other ones most recent entry is 2004. The AU service is running and
>> >> I've restarted it. Any ideas?
>> >>
>> >> Thanks!
>>
>>
>>
>>