Cannot access Windows Update

Strange occurrence with a computer I'm working on.
WinXP Home SP3

I have internet access, can browse to any site I try, even microsoft.com.

But, if I try to go to Windows Update, I get the "IE cannot display this web page" and the option to diagnose connection.

Ran the diagnostic, found nothing.
Ran Malwarebytes, Superantispyware, ESS v4.0. Nothing.
Did a SysInspector log, nothing out of the ordinary. Same with HijackThis.

Tried pinging updates.microsoft.com, can't resolve host.

In the Event Log, this is what I"m getting

Now....Starting at the beginning of July, for some reason my system got hit with a myriad of trojans. ESS caught some, missed some. What ESS couldn't get rid of, MalwareBytes did. Subsequent scans of everything show nothing.

Doing some research, other forums suggest uninstalling the Update Root Certificates and trying again. Did that, no change. Reinstalled them, nothing. Tried doing a Regsvr32 crypto32.dll and it didn't solve anything either.

Others suggest turning off any firewalls I have. SO, I disabled ESS completely, made sure the XP Firewall is still off, still cannot access it.

As I said, I can browse microsoft's website, access the technet forums, download center, etc.., but as soon as I try to hit the update site, I get the error above.

Any thoughts?

Thank You

 

Here's a low tech suggestion that has worked for me many times with strange issues such as this - try deleting internet and system temp files

 

@Ronjor - Yes I did read that one.

@LenC - Yes, I did do that. Completely cleared my cache, cookies, temp files, browsing history, add-on history, did a registry cleaning, etc..

 

few more suggestions
http://eventid.net/display.asp?eventid=8&eventno=1958&source=crypt32&phase=1

and if still problematic repair install maybe

 

Also check for the updates subdomain being null routed in hosts file, or perhaps a proxy in IE's lan settings.

 

This sounds like something I saw the other day. The initial malware infection, not being able to access only windows update after removal and even the same eventlog entry.

Additionally it wasn't possible to google "windowsupdate" so you could try that first. It turned out the computer was infected with a TDSS variety that several anti-malware products missed but a tool called tdsskiller from kaspersky was finally able to find and remove.

Don't know if you have the same problem but the symptoms sound similar.

 

Seems to be working now. Was able to access the site just fine and see the list of needed updates.

Solution was downloading and running Kaspersky's "tdsskiller". It found a bad driver and removed it after a reboot.

A little bird also sent me this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822798 Which had some useful information in it too.
So, if I still have issues or anyone else does down the road, might be worth reading over it too.


Thank you all for your help.

 

Yesterday I had the problem again, Windows Update could not install the update, error 80071A91 (Windows 7 x64).

I solved it following the procedure described in http://social.answers.microsoft.com.../thread/ff7b5d63-a545-4a2f-b769-845ecf5863bb:

Note:- Make sure that you have logged in using Administrator accounts.

Do two things over all:

First:
1. Bring up an elevated command prompt
2. Execute the following commands sequentially:

a. fsutil resource setautoreset true c:\

b. cd /d %windir%\system32\config\txr

c. attrib -r -s -h *

d. del *

Second:
Start an elevated cmd.exe
Cd %windir%\System32\SMI\Store\Machine
Attrib –a –h –s *.TM*
Del *.TM*

NOW REBOOT! After reboot updates should install.

This problem was not related to malware. WU is a headache.

 

Glad you got your problem solved.

My issue was that I couldn't access the WU website at all. Nothing to do with individual updates not being able to install.