XP keeps giving me the following error: “Automatic Updates has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience”. When this happens the event viewer generates a pair of Cat 100 Application Error entries. (1) Windows cannot access the file C:\WINDOWS\WindowsUpdate.log for one of the following reasons: there is a problem with the network connection, the disk that the file is stored on, or the storage drivers installed on this computer; or the disk is missing. Windows closed the program WindowsUpdate.log because of this error. (2) Faulting application wuauclt.exe, version 5.4.3790.2182, faulting module wuauclt.exe, version 5.4.3790.2182, fault address 0x0000c0b5. The first gives some info about how to correct the problem such as CHKDSK /F which I have tried but with no success. The final suggestion it gives is to restore it from an original copy which I am about to do. I have scanned my computer for viruses and spyware with several programs and that doesnt seem to be causing the problem. I have also re-installed XP and it still came up so it doesnt seem to be a SP2 issue. In order to stop the error coming up all the time I turned off automatic updates through My Computer but annoyingly that didnt work so I had to manually disable it as a service. Any suggestions as to how to fix it?

Problem solved. It was WindowsUpdate.log - for some reason when I tried to view it it said "access denied", so I replaced it with a copy from another computer. Presumably just deleting it would have worked also.