Windows Update fails with "Unknown Zone" in IE status bar

[Martin Underwood]

A customer with a newly-rebuilt XP Home SP2 PC is reporting that when he
tries to access the Windows Updates site from the entry on the Start Menu,
the browser gives a status error message in the bottom right hand corner:
"Unknown Zone". The page doesn't load. Other web sites work fine.

Can anyone think what might have changed since it worked when I rebuilt the
PC? He has tried adding the URL for Windows Update
http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us to the
Trusted Sites using Tools | Internet Options | Security but this has made no
difference. He said that since I installed the PC and ran Windows Update to
get him up-to-date as of last Friday, he had installed several utilities
such as Windows Defender but he thinks that Windows Update may have been
failing with unknown zone even before that. I've suggested that he removes
all those utilities to see if this makes any difference.

Does anyone have any other suggestions. Sadly a search for "Unknown Zone" in
support.microsoft.com doesn't seem to yield any relevant pages.

 

[Alan Edwards]

Try here first:
http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/troubleshoot/

If not, then please repost in the update group. Microsoft personnel
are there to help solve update problems.
(They may be swamped, so please be patient)

Server: msnews.microsoft.com
Newsgroup: microsoft.public.windowsupdate
or try this URL
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windowsupdate

....Alan