Re: IE 8 Cannot Browse to Windows Update

[Crosspost to IE General newsgroup. Please quote this entire post in your
reply.]

Is Automatic Updates enabled?

Any chance you installed AVG Free v8.5 and/or ZA and/or IE8 "shortly before
Patch Tuesday last week"?

How to troubleshoot Windows Update, Microsoft Update, and Windows Server
Update Services installation issues:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906602

Any errors or anything unusual in your WindowsUpdate.log
(%windir%\WindowsUpdate.log)?

How to read the WindowsUpdate.log file
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/902093

--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Client - since 2002
www.banthecheck.com


basketx38 wrote:
> Hi, again,
>
> My bad manners - please excuse a few times - should have given the
> standard info:
>
> IE 8.0 .6001.18702 Update Versions: 0 This info is from Help>About.
> Also, I have added all the microsoft.com websites in Trusted zone sites
> list. And update.microsoft.com has been added as a Trusted site in
> firewall.
>
> Firefox v3.5.2 can reach the website but of course, the Microsoft®
> website
> refuses to deal with Firefox.
>
> OS: Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 plus updates since SP3
> CPU: Intel Pentium 4 519J 3.06 GHz
> RAM: 2 GB PC3200 DDR2
> HD: 155GB free
> ISP: ATT.net Internet connection via: ATT.net and Westell 6100 DSL
> modem
> + Zone Alarm free 8.0.298.000
> + AVG Free 8.5 Scans every night and updates 3x/day, typically. Finds
> tracking cookies occasionally.
> + Windows Defender updated August 17, 2009. Full system scan was run last
> night, nothing found.
>
<paste>
> My IE 8 is set to go to Microsoft Update as Homepage, but, since shortly
> before Patch Tuesday last week, it cannot get there.
>
> IE 8 displays, first thing on starting, the page with message about
> downloading the latest Windows updater. This page says to click on the
> "Internet Explorer Information Bar" that is said to be seen "just below
> the
> Adress Bar." But, my IE 8 doesn't show me the Information Bar. And,
> anyway,
> something last month put my Menu Bar under my Address Bar. The Address bar
> is now on top, with the Menu bar (File, Edit, View, etc.) below the
> address
> bar.
>
> Info - In View>Toolbars, I have checked only Menu bar and Status bar,
> and
> I have not locked the Toolbars. And, Information Bar is not offered in
> this
> Toolbars list.
>
> In following the proffered link to "take these steps to solve the
> problem,: the list of steps demands to know what error code I had, which
> error of the several listed. But IE8 didn't display an error code! It just
> stuck itself upon the halfway-there page
> at http://update.microsoft.com/microsof....aspx?ln=en-us .
>
> Upshot is, I cannot get to Download the latest Windows Updater, and so I
> cannot get past this IE 8 page, to move into Microsoft Update to make it
> happen. I'm kind of, halfway there, but in the immortal words of Senator
> Robert Byrd, D-WV, "This is wrong! Wrong! Wrong!"
>
> I need to be able to find out whether I have all the latest patches from
> last Tuesday. I tried to install all eleven (11) and would like to know if
> they all "took."