Hi,

Problem sort of over, I switched the portable on this morning to try and fix
the problem only for it to frazzle itself in a cloud of blue smoke!

That's the end of that then, lucky it was only was only for occasional use.

Thanks anyway

Graham

"VanguardLH" wrote in message ...

Graham Naylor wrote:

I have just dug my old portable (runs Windows Vista and cannot be upgraded
to Windows 7) to use when needed but have found it will no longer run
Windows Updates and that my Antivirus wouldn't check for updates as well.
I
have checked that there is a working internet connection (by loading
various
web pages in Internet Explorer) and that Update Automatically is turned on
in the Control Panel.

The returned error message when trying to get an upload for Windows is:
"Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is
not running"

Go into Services (run services.msc) and check the startup mode of the
following services:

BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service)
RPC (Remote Procedure Call)
WU (Windows Update)

Both should be set to Manual startup mode. That means they run when a
caller process requests them. The WU service might be set to Automatic
(Delayed) which means it runs (but won't stay running) on Windows
startup but with an added delay before it runs. If you look at the
Dependencies tab of both BITS and WU, you'll notice they require using
the RPC service which should be set to Automatic startup mode.

Also disable your old and out-of-date anti-virus software, and any other
security software installed on your laptop as it could be inteferring
with the update process.

Have you yet FULLY powered down your laptop and restarted it? I don't
mean going into sleep mode. I don't mean going into hibernate mode. I
mean shutting down Windows and powering down the computer.

"Laptop" gives absolutely no details regarding brand and model of your
laptop. Below is a Youtube video on how one guy fixed this problem;
however, I can't see how it was working before and then failed since the
old driver was working before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFa-qBAmQiM

I think what really happened is the install stepped on something screwed
up so the effect was WU started working again. Sometimes folks get
updates but they do not perform a reboot of the computer because they
are not told it is necessary. I always reboot after getting Windows
updates. That is because the set of files is in a limbo state. There
may be files that don't match on version so they won't work well
together. Features were added, removed, or changed but there are still
files to get replaced that rely on the old functionality. Often an
update requires replacing files but some are in use which means they are
locked. The replace won't happen until after a reboot. If you leave
Windows Update configured to automatically install updates, you are
letting someone ELSE modify the state of your computer and you won't
know if they left it in a usable or reliable state. Windows updates
should be something you disable, and then enable when you are prepared
(have set aside time to first save a backup image, do the updates, and
reboot your computer perhaps twice).

Sometimes the problem is with the software catalog. Windows keeps
tracks of what has been updated by using a local catalog. If it gets
corrupt, it may not update properly. If the catalog is missing, Windows
will rebuild it so it is not critical that it exist. You can either
rename or delete (what you can) the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution
folder. You need to stop the WU service before renaming or deleting the
catalog folder. You can run "net stop wuauserv" or use services.msc to
stop the WU service, delete the catalog folder, and then restart the WU
service ("net start wuauserv" or use services.msc). With a missing
catalog, the WU client will connect to the WU server and rebuild the
catalog. I've had to do this when, for example, Windows updates never
progressed. It could be days and yet 0% got download of the selected
updates (I never allow all but review each and select which ones to
allow for install, especially with Microsoft trying to turn Win Vista/7
into an adware platform for Win10).

Here's an article about deleting the existing software catalog:
http://ccm.net/faq/2471-how-to-purge...s-update-cache

I have seen when hardware updates caused problems on booting Windows.
Sometimes what works is to boot into Windows' safe mode first and then
reboot into Windows' normal mode.