How to solve some MS update failures

I've recently encountered a couple computers either running Win XP Home SP1 or Win XP Pro SP2 which would give a response of "Failed" on each attempt to download further updates from Microsoft Update Website, even when the automatic updates service was running.
Here's what I did to fix it:

At a command prompt:
1) First stop the update service by typing "net stop wuauserv"
2) Type "cd %windir%\softwaredistribution\datastore"
This folder is supposed to be first created when SP2 is installed but I've seen it on older SP1 only computers.
3) Now delete the datastore file by typing "del datastore.edb"
4) Lastly, restart the automatic updates service, by typing "net start wuauserv"

This might not work for those of us who literally turn off most services in an attempt to streamline our OS, (hint: MS Updates requires more than the simple Automatic update services to be running).

If you don't know how to turn off services and you have the "failed" problem, try my suggestion.

ZT3000
Beta tester of "0"s and "1's"

yes indeed, you need the intelligent background transfer services intact as well.

thank you for your post, as i had just encountered this problem on a machine the other day. i was figuring it had something to do with sp2... the user had auto updates all endabled to downlaod and such, but not automatically install. apparently this caused the problem.

Here at my work, we are joined to a domain. I noticed on Windows2000 that several updates would not install under Administrator. Had to sign on under a domain admin account to install these updates on most machines. Not sure why domain admin has more (local) privs then Administrator....

Cross,

It's group policy settings that hampered your ability to install those updates. Your local administrator priviledges were decreased by that policy.
Besides, Domain Admins have more authority/priviledges than a local account.