Windows Update error 0x800A0046 - upgrade from Win2000 to WinXP

Hi! I have upgraded my PC from Windows 2000 Professional to Windows XP
Professional.

At my first Windows Update, it successfully installed the 3.1 Installation
(Update?) Package.

However since reboot, I cannot run anymore Windows Updates as I get the
0x800A0046 error message - it doesn't matter if I click on "Express" or
"Custom". I cannot even click on "Review your update history" option anymore
either!

I have tried all help from Knowledge Base 883821 and 910338 but those
methods have been unsuccessful.

Can anyone help me with this issue please?
-- Many Thanks
xo

 

If you remove the user account from any groups, you will need to log off and
on again.

Also, is the "Automatic Updates" service running as the correct user?
Start, run, type: services.msc
Locate "Automatic Updates" in the list and choose "properties".
Select "Log On" tab and make sure the button for "Local System Account" is
selected.
Then exit out and reboot.

Just some thoughts.
--

==================================
TaurArian [MS-MVP] 2005-2007 - Australia
==================================
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
"Need more help? http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=ph;en-us;6527
(Links to web pages and MSKB Articles are posted for the purposes of keeping
the information current)


| Hi! I have upgraded my PC from Windows 2000 Professional to Windows XP
| Professional.
|
| At my first Windows Update, it successfully installed the 3.1 Installation
| (Update?) Package.
|
| However since reboot, I cannot run anymore Windows Updates as I get the
| 0x800A0046 error message - it doesn't matter if I click on "Express" or
| "Custom". I cannot even click on "Review your update history" option
anymore
| either!
|
| I have tried all help from Knowledge Base 883821 and 910338 but those
| methods have been unsuccessful.
|
| Can anyone help me with this issue please?
| -- Many Thanks
| xo
|
|

 

Hi!

I have tried removing user account and also created additional accounts with
Administrator privilages (and have rebooted many times in the process), but
all with no success.

I have also checked the services for "Automatic Updates" and "Local System
Account" is selected under "Log On". However, I have noticed that I cannot
access the "Dependencies" Tab - a Services Depencies pop-up appears with the
error "Win32: Access is denied".

-- Regards
xo

 

Hello again, just an update

I still cannot use "Automatic Updates" or Windows Update via Internet
Explorer under usual circumstances. However, I have found that if I goto
Task Manager -> Processes, then select one of the "svchost.exe"/SYSTEM
process (usually the one with the highest Mem Usage) and End [its] Process, a
couple of minutes later I can update my Windows operating system!

The downside of this is that I have to restart a couple of services (Network
Neighbourhood becomes unavailable after ending the svchost.exe process), I am
not totally clear on any other possible unstability issues are on ending this
process, and that I need to "End Process" every time I think that there are
Windows Updates that need to be performed.

Does ending one of the "svchost.exe" processes shed any light on this
0x800A0046 error to anybody?

-- Regards
xoAlto

________________________________

 

Wow, I am experiencing the EXACT same thing as you, xoAlto, where after
and upgrade nothing I did made Windows Update work, I get 'Access
Denied' on the "Automatic Updates" service properties, and killing the
svchost.exe with the largest memory allowed me to run the updates. I
sure hope someone can solve this!

Michael

 

xoAlto: I just figured out that the service we are killing is the
Automatic Updates service. Not a big shocker, there, but I haven't yet
figured out how to fix this.

Michael

 

Way more than that. Next time, before killing an svchost.exe
go into a cmd window and enter:

If all that you were "killing" was Automatic Updates
you should first have tried:

net stop wuauserv

Try a search?

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...osoft.*.windowsupdate&rnum=1#3c3f54d6382046a7

(Google Groups search for
(800A0046 OR 0x800A0046) (MSFT OR MVP) group:microsoft.*.windowsupdate
- sorted by date to try to capture current thinking
- first hit
)


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---

 

Robert:

I appreciate your input on killing an svchost.exe process and also the
tasklist command. I never knew about that tasklist command and that is
going to be quite handy.

About the suggestion to search, however, xxAlto and I have both
searched the forums and been through that MS document many times. None
of the Microsoft solutions make a difference.

Also worth noting again is that this is not solely an Automatic Update
problem. For example, if we open Network Connections, the window
remains blank white; nothing ever comes up in the window.

I am thinking there is some sort of permissions issue on some critical
system files, with the way that the Microsoft and Windows Update sites
give us the specific error and we get an "Access is denied" error when
trying to view the properties of the Automatic Updates service. I also
get an "Access is denied" error on that long "Sc sdset wuauserv"
command listed on the MS document.

Any other ideas?

Michael

 

....

Looks like you're going to have to do some diagnosis then
(instead of resorting to others' canned solutions):

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsupdate/msg/ae8c1e0d497179a6

Another permissions problem perhaps? Try detecting cause
or get more details for it using FileMon (or RegMon).

If FileMon or RegMon don't give enough information
using DependencyWalker's Profiler feature (F7)
on that sc.exe command may help. I would run RegMon
concurrently then too because it certainly looks like
a registry permissions issue.


Good luck

Robert
---

 

Robert:

Thanks for the info. I ran FileMon and RegMon and saw a number of "not
found", but I really didn't see any type of access denied messages.
This entire scenario has now happened to me on two computers when
upgrading from Win2000 to XP Pro. I troubleshot for hours this morning
but ran out of time, so I wiped and reinstalled WinXP, of course
solving the problem. I have a number of other machines that I need to
upgrade, so I suspect I'll see this issue again.

One question: does being logged in as domain admin and running the
WinXP upgrade have anything to do with it? Next time I upgrade one of
these machines, I'll try it as the local admin and see if it happens
again.

Michael

 

The thing that I find most useful with FileMon especially is that it can interleave
entries for writes to the logs (i.e., the message that you can already see) with
information about other file accesses. Ditto with RegMon although
there of course you have to correlate its trace entries with the others
by using both traces' timestamps.


Robert
---