Issues installing updates after repairing XP

We received reports today that some Windows XP customers haven’t been able to install updates from Windows Update/Microsoft Update with the latest version of the Windows Update client. We are only seeing this issue when users have performed a “repair” on their Windows XP installation. I wanted to take a minute and let folks know what we know about this right now and what we’re doing about it.

After getting the reports, we began actively reproducing and investigating the issue. We have identified the root cause and the steps to resolve this issue.

Here’s what we found: when an XP repair CD is used, it replaces all system files (including Windows Update) on your machine with older versions of those files and restores the registry. However, the latest version of Windows Update includes wups2.dll that was not originally present in Windows XP. Therefore, after the repair install of the OS, wups2.dll remains on the system but its registry entries are missing. This mismatch causes updates to fail installation.

If you experience this issue, you can contact customer service using the contact info at https://support.microsoft.com/security. Additionally, a KB article describing the steps to resolve this issue will be available soon. I will update this blog with a link to the KB article when it is available. In the meantime, here are the steps included in the KB:

[Updated 9/28] Here is the new KB article: https://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=943144

1.

Stop the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps:

a. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.

b. At the command prompt, type the following commands, and then press ENTER after each command:

net stop wuauserv exit

2.

Register the file that is used by Windows Update and Microsoft Update. To do this, follow these steps:

a. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.

b. At the command prompt, type the following command, press ENTER after the command, and then click OK when you receive a verification message:

regsvr32 %windir%\system32\wups2.dll

Note: for x64 machines regsvr32 %windir%\syswow64\wups2.dll

3.

Start the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps:

a. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.

b. At the command prompt, type the following commands, and then press ENTER after each command:

net start wuauserv exit

 

 

Nate Clinton

Program Manager

Windows Update

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*