Well that's the obvious, non-system things.

Have you tried rebooting, stopping the service, setting it to manual, starting it then running the update program manually?

Found windowsupdate.log. Many repeats of this;

=========== Logging initialized (build: 7.6.7600.256, tz: -0000) ===========
2013-03-04 18:25:24:244 3876 f6c Misc = Process: C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
2013-03-04 18:25:24:244 3876 f6c Misc = Module: C:\Windows\system32\wucltux.dll
2013-03-04 18:25:24:244 3876 f6c WUApp FATAL: Failed to call GetUpdatesForInteractiveInstall, hr=8024A000
2013-03-04 18:25:24:244 3876 f6c WUApp WARNING: Failed to load the update list, error 8024A000
2013-03-04 18:25:24:244 3876 f6c WUApp WARNING: Failed to populate update list with error 8024A000
2013-03-04 18:25:24:257 3876 f6c WUApp FATAL: Failed to call GetLastActivityResults, hr=8024A000
2013-03-04 18:25:24:302 3876 f6c WUApp WARNING: Error displaying Opted In Service summary: 8024A000
2013-03-04 18:25:26:103 3876 f6c WUApp WARNING: Couldn't handle 'Check for Updates' click -- service not running

Tried all that Camie, no difference.

Lo and behold. My update wasn't working either. It started and I got never-ending progress with no updates yet.

Last updated July 2012 ( ). Then I got it to work, so maybe there's a chance.

I went into the security centre and set it to 'check for updates but let me decide which one to d/l and install', then set it cracking and it found them within a minute. Perhaps the update source has changed and it takes different ways to get it going.

Who knows.

Open elevated command prompt.

type in and run:

sfc /scannow

What does it report at the end?

Is it a HP lappy?

Open elevated command prompt.

can you remind me how

AFAIK it's win programs, windows systems, right click command prompt, run as administrator.

aye, or hold shift+ctrl

No Toshiba. Typed 'wuauclt /ShowWUAutoScan' without quotes into a cmd line no difference but an error code 8024A000 appeared. If I can remember how to start an admin cmd I'll work through it.