We have automatic updates running on all the Win XP SP2 computers in our office. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work - whenever you check the Windows Update website there are many outstanding updates. I've watched the computers try to download the updates but it always stops at 8% complete downloading and then gives up after a few minutes. There are error messages in the event log saying that Windows Update is unable to connect to the Automatic Update service. Logging in as administrator and getting the updates through Windows Update works but this approach is unmanageable with the number of computers in our office.

Check blackviper.com for the correct services that have to be running.

From what you say: Windows Update is unable to connect to the Automatic Update service Open Services and see if "Automatic Updates" service is Started and in Automatic.

I'll ditto what per said about blackviper.com, hats off to the guy for providing all that information. Been using it for a long time without fault. Oh yeah, instead of running automatic. Try going to the site and loading the updates from there. Besides that, you have to have administrative priveledges to make changes in the first place dont you? Unmanagable? If you said it works, whats the problem?

thanks but all the necessary services are enabled and I made all changes with admin priveleges (otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do anything). As I said we have too many computers in our office to go around to each one and run Windows Update every day. Users can't do it because they don't have admin priveleges and they can't be relied on to do it anyway. So I need the automatic update to work but it won't - possibly something to do with our web proxy or firewall. Does anyone have experience with these kinds of automatic update problems?

I would contact Microsoft

After some experimenting I've found that its because we were using the "Use Automatic Configuration Script" option to specify the proxy server in the Internet Options. Explicitly specifying the proxy's address and port solves this problem under the "Use Proxy Server for your LAN.." checkbox. Microsoft really needs to learn the value of configurable logging levels. A message in the even viewer saying "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." tells you absolutely nothing about why it might of failed - leaving you with hours of trial and error.