Stopping Windows update on XP

Can somebody remind me how to stop an "in progress" Windows update?

Installing the two updates from yesterday have brought one of our systems to a crawl, it's showing 17% done in the little tray icon, even after reboot & cold boots.

 

ammm ,,
try to turn off the automatic updates ...

Start >> Setting >> Control Panel

Open Automatic Updates

Choose the last choice = Turn Off Automatic Updates

Then Click OK .


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Thanks, Arash. I apologize that I didn't explain my question very well.

What I should have said was that automatic updates is not set; we use the "Notify me but don't auto download or install".

We had already clicked on download and install, so the download/install is already in progress.

Even after forcing the system to reboot, this "permission to install" is remembered, so Windows goes out and tries to download/install again, and the system slows to a crawl again.

So what I'm looking for is a way to "revoke" the permission to download/install a specific update, to "reset" the list of updates to be applied.

 

Points 1 and 2 of the following might do the trick:

http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Windows/microsoft.public.windowsupdate/2004-10/3939.html

philby

 

Aha -- thank you, Philby. I will look at the steps.

As a temporary fix I was able to get it out of the "loop" by unplugging the network cable before restarting, then plugging it in after it was booted. That somehow stopped the service from trying to restart the download cycle again, and it's now back to just waiting for permission to download/install.

[nice hat ]

 

Yesterday, Microsoft put up its icon in my system tray and upon clicking told me there were updates, and asked if I want the express or advanced download. I clicked express, and 3 items were eventually installed. I immediately had an old problem return upon reboot, being the system tray icons don't appear and you can't do anything except a hard shutdown. Well, obviously the update was at fault, so having a copy of FDISR, I booted to a good snapshot and copied the good snapshot over the one with the problem update. A few minutes later the update icon reappeared, and I clicked on it, and this time chose advanced update so I could see what was being updated. It was a security update, the January Malware tool update, and a spam update for Outlook. I checked off the security update and left the other 2 blank. A dialog box appeared verifying my choice, along with a choice whether or not to allow the unchosen items to try to download again. I checked do not allow, and those updates do not haunt me to download any more. The problem has disappeared also.

 

I had some problems with windows vista updates yesterday, Microsoft also pushed an optional driver update for IdeaCom HID touch screen via window updater. Alot of people, including myself , completely lost PS2 mouse functionality. I had to roll back the driver to the previous one.