Windows hangs at scan for windows update

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andrew
  • Start date Start date
A

Andrew

Hi,

The system hangs really solidly (frozen screen, no mouse
motion, no response to repeated ctrl-alt-del, no 'caps
lock' keyboard lamp on pressing caps lock) about halfway
through 'scanning for available updates'.

I don't believe this is the same problem reported in other
posts and discussed in Knowledge Base, but have spent
considerable time trying to solve it. Here are some
details:

I have a new PC with Win XP Pro SP1a.
After some frustration trying to solve this problem, I did
a clean windows installation to a freshly formatted disk.
From a previously prepared CD I applied the following
patches:
WindowsXP-KB826939-x86-ENU.exe (rollup of patches)
WindowsXP-KB824146-x86-ENU.exe (MS03-039)
WindowsXP-KB828035-x86-ENU.exe (MS03-043)
WindowsXP-KB828028-x86-ENU.exe
then installed ZoneAlarm, and configured the modem and
setup a diallup connection for my ISP.

* Connect to ISP via diallup
* Open IE6 SP1 (which had installed as part of XP) and
went to the microsoft windows update site
* Click on the link to scan for available updates

Scan commences, after a couple of minutes the progress
jumps to 33%, then the whole system simply freezes. No
mouse, no keyboard, no nothing - pressing the hardware
reset button is my only way out.

Same effect if I enable automatic checking for updates,
only in that case I have no control over when it happens!

The system seems stable enough if I don't go to the
windows update website.

HELP!!!
 
Haven't tried spysweeper specifically, but Spybot and
Adaware don't show anything abnormal. And the installation
history (from disk reformat) hasn't given it any
opportunity to get any infection.
 
Try turning off Zone Alarm. To do this, you have to
uncheck the box for load on startup, and re-start the
machine.
 
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