We were having a few SCOM alerts each day to inform us that the anti spam updates that usually come through Windows Update were failing to install on a customers Exchange 2007 server that was running on Windows Server 2008 SP1.

Looking in the c:WindowsWindowsUpdate.log file I could see that there was an error with BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) which Windows Update uses to download updates. This led me to use the bitsadmin tool to see if there was any downloads stuck:

1. Open a command prompt as administrator

2. Type in the following command and press enter:

bitsadmin /list /allusers

3. If there any lines in the output such as the following then we need to reset the jobs:

{04D0B991-54E3-41C4-B475-572D9E31BFE5} ‘WU Client Download’ SUSPENDED 0 / 1 0 / 13352278

To kill off the jobs is not as simple as it seems as even with an administrator account I could not kill off the jobs giving me an unable to cancel error. The task had to be run as system as a scheduled task:

1. Open up notepad and put in the following line:

bitsadmin /reset /allusers

2. Save the notepad file back as a batch file by save as and giving it a name with the extension .bat

3. Open Task Scheduler and create a new task that runs that batch file and put it to run at a certain time or manually.

4. Before the task runs we just need to change the user account that it runs under system by clicking on Change User or Group button, typing in system as object name and clicking on Check Names:

5. Either schedule the job to run or right click on the job and select run now.

Once the job has run then you can again run the bitsadmin /list /allusers and you should get an output showing no jobs:

The update for the Anti Spam updates should then install without any problems and you should no longer receive this alert.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Paul

We have came across an error this month after patching our environment.

Most of our windows 2008 R2 servers started having the below event flooding the event logs

“Activation context generation failed for “C:Windowssystem32conhost.exe”. Dependent Assembly Microsoft.Windows.SystemCompatible,processorArchitecture=”amd64″,
publicKeyToken=”6595b64144ccf1df”,type=”win32″,version=”6.0.7600.16816″ could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.”

It turns out that this error is caused by “Security Update for Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Edition (KB2507938)” and this can safely be ignored. For more information please see “http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2507938/”.

You can get rid of the alert by upgrading to 2008 R2 SP1.

I came across the issue the other day when i was updating a server, basically I’ve opened up the Windows Update homepage to apply some updates and i was receiving a 403 forbidden error.

You may also see the Below error in the Event Log also.

Event

Source : crypt32

Event Id : 8

The first thing to check when you get a problem with the windows update is the windows update log. Find the Window update log  in the following location “%systemroot%windowsupdate.log”.

To find the most recent error received we need to got to the very bottom of the log (Ctrl + End). As you can see, the error just jumps out at you

FATAL: Update required for C:WINDOWSSysWow64wuweb.dll: target version = 7.2.6001.788, required version = 7.4.7600.226

So what we need to do is update the windows update agent to the required version. For the Version number “7.4.7600.226” the url is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946928. If you have a different agent version require you should be able to find a download link with a quick Google search.

Thank You

Daniel Davies