I have a new computer 3 weeks old with automatic uodates but the updates
don,t seem to come, winows xp home ed,like yours mine says its switched on
but I wonder if it is, sorry I can,t help ypu as I am having greif as well.
--
roxanne


"Mike" wrote:

> I'm fixing up a friend's laptop. I upgraded to SP2 and
> Security Center keeps telling me Automatic Updates is
> turned off when it's not. I go to the Windows Update site
> and it prompts me to update the software, forwards me to
> v5 of WU and then I install 3 hotfixes and reboot. Now
> Security Center is telling me that Automatic Updates is
> turned on. Great!
>
> So now I'm cleaning up the laptop, removing some spyware,
> viruses, etc. I reboot and Security Center tells me
> Automatic Updates is turned off. I go to the Windows
> Update website and it won't connect giving me an
> 0x80070424 error, of which there's no mention ANYWHERE on
> MS support site. After looking around and beating my head
> a bit I realize that the Automatic Updates service is just
> gone...doesn't exist. OK, I'm guessing that's a problem.
>
> I reinstall SP2 hoping the service will come back but no
> dice. So next thing I try is I go to my desktop which is
> running XP SP2 with no problems and I export the entire
> registry key -
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\wuause
> rv
> I import this key into the laptop and reboot. Security
> Center is still balking telling me Automatic Updates is
> turned off. I go to the Windows Update website and it
> gives me a new error message which I forget, but I tracked
> down the error message to the Automatic Updates service
> being disabled. So I look in services and sure enough it
> shows the service available and running, but showing
> disabled. I open up the registry editor and SOMETHING
> changed the Start value to 4 from 2 (turning it to
> disabled) AND added a value named DeleteFlag set to 1. So
> I delete the DeleteFlag entry and change start back to 2.
> Refresh services and it shows it as Running set to
> Automatic. I hit the Windows Update site and now it's
> telling me that Automatic Updates is currently running and
> set to automatically download. Windows Update completely
> works fine now. I reboot the machine and sure enough
> SOMETHING added back the DeleteFlag and set the service to
> disabled again.
>
> This is absolutely driving me nuts. What is controlling
> this service and deleting it? And why? Is there a way to
> properly reinstall the Automatic Updates client? I sure as
> hell can't find a way to. I tried downloading the
> Automatic Updates client but it errors out on install
> saying "Microsoft Windows Update Auto Update requires
> Windows 2000 SP2 or Windows XP".
>
> Hopefully someone can shed some light on this.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Mike
>