Windows Update link in Help and Support Centre and IE8 Tools Windows Update are NOT RESPONDING (page

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Hi, Hope the title explains issue, in short. O/S is XP Home SP3. Security Patches are installed and up to date. Anti Virus is up to date. Security scans (including Microsoft on-line) conform no virus, malware, etc (unless something is hiding itself real good!)The long version of the problem is as follows:I can't access the Windows Update server as usual (it hangs page while searching at the active x check) using either Help And Support Page or IE8 Tools. Task Manager says - Not Responding although IE8 is running ok in the background and the rest of the Help

and Support Services are running OK. The usual M/S Update url's are listed in my IE8 OK Sites. This is a genuine XP and the Update Agent is checked as being installed.I have tried the automated Windows Update Fix It Tool (several times) and it doesn't fix although each time it says Windows Update Components must be repaired - it then applies the repair and (after reboot) the problem remains.Interestingly, automatic updates seem to be working. I know this because, after checking the Update Service is enabled and the Registry Key was in the right order and in the right place, i decided to try resetting the IE8 Advanced settings back to default to

see if I was connected automatically to the Update Server for the latest Critical Updates for IE8 - and I was! So 2 updates were downloaded and installed. But, it didn't solve the problem.Windows Update has been running OK for me for years but since the recent issues regarding the so called Zero Day problem with IE 6, 7 and 8 I ran one of the Fix It (Workaround Tools) that Microsoft posted as a temporary "fix" before the patch was made available,

which I then downloaded and installed. It seems to me the Update problem occurred after I installed these patch/fixes.I have CVE-2012-4969 listed in my Installed Programs and I believe this is the FixIt Patch repair from microsoft and (trust) this is not the nasty itself that it relates to!Seems to me a setting has got corrupted somewhere, somehow. I have run sfc /scannow but this didn't fix. I have flushed the dns but that didnt fix it either.I am wondering if the IE8 security settings are too high and its this that is blocking the active x script so I set them all to default and that didn't fix either.Also, owing to the recent Java issues (as yet unresolved as I understand) Java was uninstalled a few weeks ago - does the Windows Update require Java? If so this could be the answer but perhaps someone reading this might confirm and (please) offer some idea

as to what might be wrong and what else I might try.Ok, so if the Automated Update Service is working you might ask why worry? Well, 1) I wonder why Manual Update has stopped working and seems not to want to be fixed by the means I've tried so for, 2) this makes me think is there some installed program  blocking

manual access that could also be malicious and 3) because as its bust I do want to fix it and also to get Custom Updates.I look forward to replies as I don't know what else to try.Kind regards. 

 

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