Unable to get auto update to recognize that updates are needed

[AM]

Older Sony laptop upgraded to XP Pro, but was unable to
put sp1 on due to lack of space. It is owned by school,
and used by my wife. I got enough space and then tried to
update. Used zippedfile to access MS that was from
attempt after install. I left and returned in a couple of
hours later, I had a normal looking machine. I checked
and it was not on machine, but on retrys it always says no
update available and will not allow a download. If you
run the zipfile it opens and asks to "I Accept" and
whether to achive files and then disappears and does
nothing. I had the school reinstall XP incase I deleted
something critical, but no difference. I now notice, not
sure I tried before, that regedit opens and then closes,
but no message. Noticed the same for msconfig. I could
find nothing on help that did not appear to be ok, but
lack experience there. I did F8 on boot and created a new
user with admin rights but no difference. Read some posts
and saw that suggested more than once. Thanks for any
suggestion. Any one know a book that is good enough to
help on this type of problem? I dislike computer help!!!
Thanks Art

 

[Roger Abell]

Hi Art,

My suggestion is that if you are intent on running XP on
that machine, you should invest in a larger hard disk for it.
It is not safe to run without service pack 1, and will only
become more so as time passes.
There are worms/viri out there that as part of their actions
disable access to administrative tools/interfaces. Some of
what you have said sounds suspiciously similar.