When I try to "check and install" any update from WIndows Update, the program starts, asks me if I accept the license Agreement (by the way: the license agreement is empty), apparently starts downloading but the progress bar never starts to move, after a while a web page in Windows Update says that "the following updates failed to install" [note: they werenīt even downloaded] and then lists the updates iīve selected. WINXP final build Home Edition. (didnīt ocurr me in a previous installation of the same OS in the same computer)

MS have been having problems, try another day

Try this: Open with notepad the file: C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and add the following line 207.68.131.20 www.download.windowsupdate.com

THANK GOD YOU GOT IT TOO!!!!! Since Yesterday, make that the 11th at around 1:AM I have been trying to get windowsupdate to download stuff on several of my MS computers, and I have many: Win98SE (3), Win2000(5) and WinXP (1). THe Windowsupdate thingy was driving me nuts!!! One would think microsoft would post the problem at their site and save their customers (Suckers, like me) some grief. I am a stonrg believer in the right tool for the right job, Windows has its place (had?), but when things like this happen I am really thankfull I also have Linux Boxes, for you windows guys let me put it like this, A mandrake box has automated updates to, but it can get them from about 20 different places, and it the automatic does not work, you can always do a manual FTP. Windows update only works with IE, never lets you know where the files are coming from, and if it breaks, thats it, no FTP, no nothing. Also, this looks like a very succesfull attack on some parts of the Internet and directed to microsoft, I have seen it done by viruses, you know the kind that wonīt let you get to the antivirus update sites, but, how to stop a clean machine from updating? easy, hit the routers, and DNS servers, and once you got them to not update, why not get them to go somewhere else and exploit one of many vuleravilities already available in IE and ALL windows versions (XP,NT,2000,98,98SE, ME, etc). Letīs see, If I were a really nasty cracker and found a really neato new way to infect Windows boxes through redirecting their browsers to some site posing as another, I would do a three pronged attack, first disable access to windows update (probably screwing with the dnsīs), then direct all poor souls to a site claiming to have the updates (not very smart)or, start fooling around with the dns's of other very popular sites, and infect them through those. After I had a few hundred thousand PC's in control, go to sleep, a day or two would be enough, and the strike with a vengance, on monday. There are even ways to see which machines are owned by the less technically adept (looking in the registry)and make a home there. This could be the first signs of a very succesfull, very well thought attack, the first of its kind. I know it sounds paranoid, but if the fix suggested here invloving the hosts file works (i have not tried it) it would all point to someone messing with the DNS servers of some ISP's around the internet, my guess is not everyone is getting this problem, because the DNS servers of more adept ISP's have not been compromised, maybe only one brand or model of router or type of DNS is being hit. Microsoft support staff had no idea that their update site was being compromised as of friday afternoon (I spent almost an hour with one of them on the phone). This also makes sense, if all MS around the world is connected in one big happy WAN, they can access windowsupdate.com with no problem, its in their own intranet. And probably they would not notice a small drop on the number of windosupdate requests, they would probably only notice a drop of more than 20% and maybe only work days, not on the weekend. Add it all up and ice the cake with the fact that Microsoft considers this sort of thing more of a PR problem than a technical issue, and there you go, nasty way to begin the year, oh and by the way, lets not forget that this started to happen on the 11th. Nasty thought I know, but it can be done, and this looks like it.

Same here, carn't get it to downlaod anything I'll just have to wait untill MS get there act together.

"Try this: Open with notepad the file: C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and add the following line 207.68.131.20 www.download.windowsupdate.com " NB.: Preview in this forum is not same final display. The line: 207.68.131.20 www.down... is one line, no 2 lines.

207.68.131.20 [tab] www.down...