I'm trying to sort a friends Vista PC. It wont do any windows updates. msg 'Windows could not search for new updates'. At this point I have to say that this system is vanilla in most aspects, its mainly used for web access and word. Normally first step is to do a system restore but by the time I was called the restore points had been overwritten by new ones. No full Acronis type backup is available, he tends only to backup his own files. so I searched the web and numorous suggestions came up. The main one seemed to be to 'Run the system readiness tool' which I did but it had no effect. Next I checked that all the required services were running along with their dependancies! all ok. I then looked at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2509997 which gives a list of options to fix this issue. Synopsis - Run SFC/Scannow; Reset the Catroot2 file; REmove any incorrect registry entries; Reregister the windows update dll's; Stop anti-virus; rename the software distribution folder; clear the BITS queue; rename the pending.xml and run chkdsk. (All actions are documented in the support file).

Nothing made any difference. After each change I re-booted. I eventually downloaded a program which runs the windows updates through the CMD screen. This worked ok.

I'm still at a loss as to what to try next. He does not want me to reformat and reinstall Vista and is happy to use the CMD command to run the update program but I'd like to know what else could be causing this problem.

I may have missed a few things I tried but would be gratefully for any advice.