Brian-Foley.net

I have no clue what the kids in Redmond have been doing to the Windows/Microsoft Update site, but it seems like lately every system I’ve tried to run the updates on I get an error. After spending a LONG time checking for updates, it comes back with Error number: 0×8DDD0009. I should clarify that it’s always on Windows XP SP2 systems. So, I follow the instructions Microsoft has provided on this error page including emptying the cache, restarting the browser and… It still fails, all I’ve accomplished is wasting a heck of alot of time!

Next step, google the error, it turns out that this problem is common. I tried all the advice found on the net.

Open command prompt and run the following:

proxycfg -d
net stop wuauserv
net start wuauserv


This didn’t work. Next I tried re-registering the msxml3.dll.

regsvr32 msxml3.dll

Those steps USED to work for Windows Update errors.But now I’ve found that more drastic measures had to be performed, basically removing the ActiveX components and reinstalling from the Windows update site. Here’s the steps involved…

1. Clear Internet Explorer’s cache and then close the browser.
2. From a command prompt type net stop wuauserv.
3. Next, stop the Automatic Updates and Background Intelligent Transfer
   from the service panel (Start->Control Panel->Administrative
   Tools->Services).
4. Remove the following files/directories:C:\windows\downloaded program files\WUWebControl Class
C:\Program Files\WindowsUpdate
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution
5. Unregister the wuweb.dll and rename some other files from a command prompt:cd %windir%\system32
regsvr32 /u wuweb.dll
ren wuweb.dll wuweb.old
ren muweb.dll muweb.old
ren iuengine.dll iuengine.old
6. Restart the Automatic Updates and Background Intelligent Transfer services from the service panel.
7. Open Internet Explorer and run the Windows Update. It should ask to install an ActiveX component,after doing that, scan for updates, and it should work fine.

I hope this helps someone to get their updates working again. I also hope Microsoft learns to test their products more before rolling out changes that ends up breaking things.

Welcome back!