How do I get automatic Windows updates if that feature is greyed out in Automatic Updates in System

My office computer(XP, SP3) is of course part of a network.

Through mid-June, it always received Windows updates, which I would
then mostly approve for installation (like 98% of them).

This week I noticed that the June 13 or whatever the date was update
was the last series I'd had. So I went to Windows Update and
downloaded (guessing) 20 updates in three different stages, with
reboots necessary after each stage.

I cannot reset my computer for automatic updates. Those settings are
greyed out in the Automatic Updates tab of the system properties. And
whether I use Windows Update or Microsoft Update, I don't have an
option shown to select any flavor of automatic updates.

I'm geek enough that I don't mind just checking for updates manually
(a process made kind of easy by the fact that my home XP computers all
get automatic updates that I manually install, reminding me to do it
at work). But I'd love to know how to restore the auotmatic update
download/reminder system I had previously.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/updaterestore.reg and other
references suggest some registry tweaks to try to alleviate this, but
none have worked.

 

1. Check the Service Manager for "Automatic Update" service
Click Start, select Run and type: Services.msc
Press Enter
Locate the - "Automatic Update"
Make sure the service is not disabled and started.

2. If the service is disabled and cannot be started:

Go to START, Select RUN
Type: regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
Press Ok

3. If all else fails:-

Automatic Updates options are grayed out?:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/aupolicy.htm

 

This did it for me. Everything on the computer was as it should have
been, except for

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Policies \ Microsoft \ Windows \
WindowsUpdate \ AU

* In the right-pane, delete the two values AUOptions and
NoAutoUpdate

When I deleted those two values, I could again set an automatic update
preference and everything worked fine. Didn't even need to reboot.

Thanks.