WinXP AudoUpdate stuck. . .any suggestions?

Hello,

I am currently trying to clean a friends computer up, with the help of chaslang in the Spyware forum. They had a lot of spyware/virus activity on their machine. I have a thread in the Spyware section regarding that, but I also have a couple of software issues. Any recommendations/advice is greatly appreciated. You guys are great!

I recently noticed that the AutoUpdate icon comes up every time I start the machine, but if I scroll the mouse over it it always says "Downloading Updates: 0%". Also, if I right click on it, it doesn't give me any options(pause or resume). I am on broadband, so even if it is trying to download SP2, it should have been done by now. Someone told me that Microsoft is limiting the number of SP2 autoupdates that are going out at one time, and that the icon will stay up until the computer gets it. The thing that worries me is that this machine had not been updated in quite a while. It had downloaded several critical updates that were waiting for install, but for some reason, my friend didn't do it. When I first booted up, it said they were ready to install, but I was in the middle of something so I told it to remind me later. I then forgot that they had already been downloaded by Autoupdate, and manually downloaded them from the MS site. Could this cause my problem, or am I just being paranoid? If I do have a problem, how do I fix it? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
--dazed&confused--

 

Chk this out http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=306525

 

Thanks jujet84,

I took a look at that article. Afterwords, I double-checked to make sure Autoupdate is set up correctly. It was. Is there any way to make sure the program is working correctly?

Thanks again for everyone's assistance.

--dazed&confused--

 

I recently figured out something new about this situation. When I turned off the AutoUpdate service, the little AutoUpdate icon that was previously stuck on 0% finally went away. After that, I turned the service back on, and have not seen the icon since then. I still haven't downloaded SP2 because I am paranoid about catastrophic failure I guess AU was trying to download it, and got stuck. I am hoping it will try again soon, because I would really like to make sure AU is still functioning before I give my friend his computer back.

Does anyone know of a good way to test AU to make sure that it is working properly? Has anyone else had a similar experience with AutoUpdate?

Thanks in advance for the assistance.

--dazed&confused--