Hello Walt,
You need to do some digging to get at the failure code & description.
If you have Internet Explorer version 6:
Place sites into Exceptions list (to get around Pop-up blocking):
Internet Explorer > main menu /Tools/Popup Blocker>Pop-up Blocker settings
In block titled "Address of Web site to allow" type in
update.microsoft.com , then click Add.
Repeat for windowsupdate.microsoft.com
then press Close.
Go back to Windows /MS Update & just select "Review history".
Click on the Red X where install failure is noted.
Post back with exact wording.
You may need to look at your update log:
Suggest you review the windows update log file and see what it contains for the last session.
{The last 20 to 30 lines ought to do it}.
Use Notepad or Wordpad and take a look at (usually C:\WINNT or \Windows )
%windir%\WindowsUpdate.log
Scan down to the bottom. Review contents.
You need to look for entries marked "Error" such as 0x......... (where ....... are numbers)
See KB 902093 How to read the Windowsupdate.log file
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/902093