Windows Update not working- Windows XP

[noxiousCaitSith]

windows update is turned off and windows security center is trying to get me to turn it on. when i click the button that says "turn on automatic updates" it says the security center cannot change the settings and that i should go into the control panel and do it myself. i've tried that and it doesn't work either. i just went on microsoft's website and used their fix it program and that wasn't able to turn automatic updates on either. they also had an option to run the command "net stop wuauserv" which, of course, didn't work...i believe automatic update stopped working after i removed a virus. so anyone have any idea why it's not working?
the command prompt came back with this after i tried the net stop command - "system error 1060 has occurred."

 

[SimMike2]

Make sure your time and date is set correctly.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Have you tried net start wuauserv?

What are the contents of C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log?

What does running "wuapp" bring up?

 

[bruceb]

Try this:

Go to Control Panel/Administration Tools/Services.

Right click on Background Intelligent Transfer > Properties & enable


Also check as below:

I have seen this error with automatic updates service if the system root folder i WINNT instead of windows...if this is the case then open Regedit and go to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\wuauserv

ImagePath = %systemroot%\system32\....
needs to be changed to: ImagePath = C:\WINNT\system32\...

then restart the machine and automatic updates should now be started
Worst case is do a repair install of XP. When a virus is present and gets removed
in some cases, a critical file is damaged or removed.

 

[corkyg]

I beliueve you have to have Active-X installed as well.

 

[Matt1970]

Dial-A-Fix is a good XP Windows Update fix tool. You might get some errors on IE as they never updated anything beyond IE6 but it should fix the update.

 

[ImDonly1]

Try this MS tool it worked on a PC I had to use it on...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971058

Run the Fix It program. If it fails the first time, run it again.

 

[noxiousCaitSith]

oh snap. automatic updates just came up and said time to restart the computer. thank you to everyone for the input. ended up going with Dial-A-Fix. tried the microsoft tool on their website and it failed. the other options of manually editing the registry didn't work cause my computer is kind of a mess and i couldn't find the directory that you referenced.