I fought this for two days. I tried all the things MS knowledge base
said. I tried everything I could find on the net like additional
sites to add to the trusted list. Nothing worked.

Here is what finally fixed it for me:
I have ZoneAlarm configured to keep certain MS dlls/apps from
accessing the internet. That was not the problem. I would boot up
and disable ZoneAlarm before running WindowsUpdate to let them talk as
they needed. The problem was that once ZoneAlarm has kept these MS
dlls/apps from accessing the internet then even after you disable
ZoneAlarm they will never try again (during that boot up).

They try once on boot up and if they fail, even if you disable
ZoneAlarm, they will never try again like when you go to
WindowsUpdate.

I marked all the MS stuff as allowed to access the internet, rebooted,
and WindowsUpdate worked fine.

I would recommend that you disable outbound "phone home" firewalls and
anti-virus while accessing WindowsUpdate. This was easy for me as my
LAN is well protected from the internet but those with direct
connections to the internet that rely entirely on personal firewalls
must be careful not to expose themselves.

The MS program in question was "Generic Host Process" (or possibly
"Services and Controller app") and it would probably work to just give
this guy full access to the internet for the duration of the
WindowsUpdate.

I understand that there may be a similar issue with Norton (NIS?)
firewalling these MS programs.

Cliff

On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 20:02:03 +1000, "Taurarian"
<taurarianREMOVECAPS@hotmail.com> wrote:

>You can download them from the Catalog and save to be installed later.
>http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.co...en/default.asp
>How to Download Windows Updates and Drivers from the Windows Update Catalog
>http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=323166
>
>Click Add button for each update you want to download. Once you have what you want,
>Click the “Go To Download Basket” link. Type in or browse to the location where you
>want the updates saved to and then Click the “Download Now” button.
>Once downloaded, you can then burn them to CD.
>
>Search for a download
>http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/s...displaylang=en
>
>How to install multiple Windows updates or hotfixes with only one reboot
>http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=296861
>
>Error: 80072efd = ERROR_INTERNET_CANNOT_CONNECT
>Translation: Cannot connect to the Internet server
>See also:
>When searching for available updates on the Windows Update site, you receive the
>0x8024502d error.
>http://v5.windowsupdate.microsoft.co...cleid=26&ln=en
>
>
>"Sharper9" <Sharper9@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>news:314045FB-6166-47C3-8235-713DBF5143CB@microsoft.com...
>> Is there an alternate site to down load xp update?
>> --
>> all the best
>> Steve H