Windows update locks up

[J M R]

In the last 2 weeks windows updates will not work. I click on the updates I
need and the separate box comes up saying that the updates are downloading
but nothing happens. This lasts for about 2 minutes then I get a screen that
says it was unable to download and install the program. Any ideas what is
going wrong. I have tried to run repair for windows XP with no success, just
in case it was a corrupt driver causing the problem. I have also turned off
my firewall (zone alarm) to run the updates. I never had to do this in the
past put I tried it anyway with no luck. Any help would be greatly
appreciated.

 

[xfile]

Hi:

I also encountered similar problem once a while, so what I do is to download
the update (by clicking "more information" on the specific update and then
will be re-directed to a new page with links to the local download in most
cases) to the local drive and install it.

Even local installation may fail still, it would in most cases provide more
detailed error codes or messages than online installation. And it's easier
to tweak to see where seems to be the problems.

Hope this will help.