Error 0x800A01AD when trying to access Windows Update Website

I am receiving error number 0x800A01AD when trying to access the Windows
Update website (v5). This problem began immediately after I installed Win XP
SP2 (I had never had trouble accessing the site before).

I have tried all of the solutions that I could find both in the MS Knowledge
Base and this forum, including some that seem to have worked for most people,
but none of them solved my problem.

I apologize for the length of this post, but listed below are all of the
solutions that I have tried so far. I am posting them here in hopes that
someone will have additional suggestions to help me solve my problem, and
also in case some of the steps below might help someone else who encounters
this same problem. As I said, some of these suggestions have reportedly
helped a lot of people, but none of them worked in my case.

Here's what I have tried:

1. Gave the Administrator and System accounts Full Control and Read
permissions on the registry key

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cur rentVersion\WindowsUpdate"
(from Microsoft's Windows Update Troubleshooter).

2. Registered the files "msxml.dll", "msxml2.dll", and "msxml3.dll" (from
the MS Knowledge Base article #833766).

3. Installed MSXML 3.0 SP4 (from the MS Knowledge Base article #833766).

4. Ran "services.msc", changed the startup type for Automatic Updates and
BITS to "automatic", and stopped and restarted both services (from the post

"MICROSOFT REPLY FOR error number: 0x800A01AD" [8/29/2004] in the "Windows
Update General" forum in the MS Discussion Groups).

5. Deleted all files from the "\Windows\SoftwareDistribution" folder (from
the post "MICROSOFT REPLY FOR error number: 0x800A01AD" [8/29/2004] in the

"Windows Update General" forum in the MS Discussion Groups).

6. Within Internet Options: Deleted all cookies, temporary Internet files,
and objects; set the Security settings back to the default level, then
clicked "Custom

Level" and made sure everything under the "ActiveX controls and plug-ins"
and "Scripting" sections were set to "Enable" or "Prompt"; set the Privacy
settings

and Advanced settings back to the defaults; under "Connections->LAN
Settings->Advanced", made sure that there were no entries in the "Exceptions"
section -

there weren't in my case, but the post suggested deleting any that might be
there (from the post "MICROSOFT REPLY FOR error number: 0x800A01AD"

[8/29/2004] in the "Windows Update General" forum in the MS Discussion
Groups).

7. Cleared the proxy cache: From a command prompt, executed the commands
"PROXYCFG -D", "NET STOP WUAUSERV", and "NET START

WUAUSERV" (from the post "MICROSOFT REPLY FOR error number: 0x800A01AD"
[8/29/2004] in the "Windows Update General" forum in the MS

Discussion Groups).

8. Ran the batch file found at
http://www.sherylcanter.com/movablet...es/000006.html . This file
combines several proposed solutions found in MS

Knowledge Base articles and proposed by MS support personnel. It stops the
"wuauserv" service, empties and removes the "SoftwareDistribution" folder,

registers the files "wuapi.dll", "wuaueng.dll", "wucltui.dll", "wups.dll",
and "msxml3.dll", and restarts the "wuauserv" service (from the post "error
0x800a01ad

when trying to use windows update" [12/16/2004] in the "Windows Update
General" forum in the MS Discussion Groups).

9. Ran the "fixdb.bat" file found at
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxSP2.htm#C...Service_Pack_2 . While
this is actually a possible fix for the error

"0x800710D9", it was suggested as a fix for 0x800A01AD as well (from the
post "error 800A01AD; WU cannot display requested page" [9/12/2004] in the

"Windows Update General" forum in the MS Discussion Groups).

10. Attempted to install the BITS 2.0 update, but I received a message from
the installer that this was unneccesary since I had already installed XP SP2.

I anyone has any additional suggestions, they will be greatly appreciated.
I can also post my WindowsUpdate.log file here if anyone feels it will help
them diagnose my problem. I looked at the file, but didn't see anything that
helped me. (The main errors listed seem to be "Unable to connect to the
service (hr=80040154)" and "Unable to initiate asynchronous search,
hr=80040154".

Thanks!

Burritonator wrote:
> I am receiving error number 0x800A01AD when trying to access the
> Windows Update website (v5). This problem began immediately after I
> installed Win XP SP2 (I had never had trouble accessing the site
> before).
>
.........
>
> I apologize for the length of this post, but listed below are all of
> the solutions that I have tried so far. I am posting them here in
> hopes that someone will have additional suggestions to help me solve
> my problem, .....

Hi;

Wow, you've done a lot of excellent research and work on this. OK here's
one more obscure thing to try (I'm pretty sure it wasn't in your list, but
sorry if it was and I missed it).

First, get one more file registered. On the Start/Run line enter "regsvr32
scrrun.dll"

Next, download and install the latest MS scripting engine from the link
below (it's newer than SP2):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

Do a Restart for good measure and then give WU another try.

HTH

--

....Sky

Tom "Sky" King
=============

Thank you very much for the suggestion. It didn't solve my problem, but I
will add it to my list of possible fixes. I am getting ready to send a
support request to MS, and while many of the suggestions in my list came from
information that MS tech support gave to other users, hopefully they will
have some suggestions that I haven't thought of yet if I share with them
everything that I have already tried.

Burritonator

"Sky King" wrote:

> Burritonator wrote:
> > I am receiving error number 0x800A01AD when trying to access the
> > Windows Update website (v5). This problem began immediately after I
> > installed Win XP SP2 (I had never had trouble accessing the site
> > before).
> >
> .........
> >
> > I apologize for the length of this post, but listed below are all of
> > the solutions that I have tried so far. I am posting them here in
> > hopes that someone will have additional suggestions to help me solve
> > my problem, .....
>
> Hi;
>
> Wow, you've done a lot of excellent research and work on this. OK here's
> one more obscure thing to try (I'm pretty sure it wasn't in your list, but
> sorry if it was and I missed it).
>
> First, get one more file registered. On the Start/Run line enter "regsvr32
> scrrun.dll"
>
> Next, download and install the latest MS scripting engine from the link
> below (it's newer than SP2):
> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en
>
> Do a Restart for good measure and then give WU another try.
>
> HTH
>
> --
>
> ....Sky
>
> Tom "Sky" King
> =============
>
>
>
>
>

I heard back from MS Tech Support, and they suggested some additional things
for me to try. None of these solved my problem either, but I wanted to add
them to this thread in case these suggestions might be of help to someone
else:

* Register all of the following files: Regsvr32, msxml.dll, msxml2.dll,
msxml3.dll, wuapi.dll, wuaueng.dll, wucltui.dll, wups.dll, wuweb.dll,
qmgr.dll, qmgrprxy.dll, jscript.dll. Some of these were already registered
in an earlier suggestion in previous post, but there are some new files in
this list also.

* Run regedit, navigate to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Svchost,
double-click the "netsvcs" key, and add wuauserv and BITS to the list that
appears if they aren't already there (they were in my case).

The representative's final request was that if the suggested solutions
didn't solve the problem, that I run msinfo32, save the information as a .nfo
file, and send it to him. This resulted in another unexpected error - when I
run msinfo32, I receive the error "Can't Collect Information - Cannot access
the Windows Management Instrumentation software. Windows Management files
may be removed or missing." I have passed this information along to the rep
and I am awaiting a reply, but in the meantime, does anyone have any
suggestions as to how to resolve this new problem with msinfo32, and is it
likely that this is related to my problem accessing Windows Update, or is it
completely unrelated? (I am preparing to research this new problem in the MS
KB and I will post an update if I discover anything helpful.)

Burritonator

The only article I found in the KB regarding the error I received when I ran
msinfo32 suggested the following:

Run "services.msc" and make sure the following three services are running:
Event Log, Windows Management Instrumentation, and Remote Procedure Call
(RPC).

All of those services were already running my PC, so this suggestion didn't
resolve my problem. I am still awaiting a reply from MS Tech Support.

Burritonator

---

"Burritonator" wrote:

>
> The representative's final request was that if the suggested solutions
> didn't solve the problem, that I run msinfo32, save the information as a .nfo
> file, and send it to him. This resulted in another unexpected error - when I
> run msinfo32, I receive the error "Can't Collect Information - Cannot access
> the Windows Management Instrumentation software. Windows Management files
> may be removed or missing." I have passed this information along to the rep
> and I am awaiting a reply, but in the meantime, does anyone have any
> suggestions as to how to resolve this new problem with msinfo32, and is it
> likely that this is related to my problem accessing Windows Update, or is it
> completely unrelated? (I am preparing to research this new problem in the MS
> KB and I will post an update if I discover anything helpful.)
>
> Burritonator

Burritonator wrote:
> didn't solve the problem, that I run msinfo32, save the information
> as a .nfo file, and send it to him. This resulted in another
> unexpected error - when I run msinfo32, I receive the error "Can't
> Collect Information - Cannot access the Windows Management
> Instrumentation software. Windows Management files may be removed or
> missing." ...

Hi;

This article doesn't exactly match the WMI error you got, but the Repair
installation could resolve that (and perhaps the other) issue.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;823775

--

....Sky

Tom "Sky" King
=============

The Microsoft Tech Support rep that I had been corresponding with also
suggested running the repair installation, so I went ahead and did that. I
can now access the Windows Updates site again, but I still get the same error
when running msinfo32. I'm not really worried about that right now, however,
since the Windows Update problem was my primary concern.

Since my version of XP Pro is a pre-SP2 version, when I ran the repair
install, my OS reverted back to XP Pro SP1. What I am trying to figure out
now is the next time I try to install SP2, how do I prevent the problem with
the Windows Update site from occurring all over again? If anyone has any
suggestions as to any precautions that I should take before I install SP2
again, I'd appreciate hearing them.

Thanks

"Sky King" wrote:

> Burritonator wrote:
> > didn't solve the problem, that I run msinfo32, save the information
> > as a .nfo file, and send it to him. This resulted in another
> > unexpected error - when I run msinfo32, I receive the error "Can't
> > Collect Information - Cannot access the Windows Management
> > Instrumentation software. Windows Management files may be removed or
> > missing." ...
>
> Hi;
>
> This article doesn't exactly match the WMI error you got, but the Repair
> installation could resolve that (and perhaps the other) issue.
> http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;823775
>
> --
>
> ....Sky
>
> Tom "Sky" King
> =============
>
>