Windows Update fails on Vista

[allanlewis]

I've been having a problem with Windows Update for some time and I always get one of two error messages, either one reporting an unknown error (the code doesn't seem to have an entry in Microsoft KB) or one telling me I don't have admin rights, which I do. (I am the only user on the machine, apart from the guest account.) The first message generally comes up the first time I try Windows Update and the second one generally appears on subsequent attempts.

I have searched for solutions to this and have tried various things, including:

• Stopping some services (I don't remember which ones) and deleting the update folder from c:\windows.
• Unlocking the "super-admin" account and updating using that. (I still get the "no admin rights" message when I do this.)

Are there any other things I could try?

[I'll try to add the error code I'm getting to this post at some point but, as I said, it doesn't seem to yield any KB results.]

[Midknyte]

An error number would help.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/1...date-in-vista/

[Sterling_Aug]

What "super admin" account?

[allanlewis]

An error number would help.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/1...date-in-vista/

I'll confirm the error number ASAP but that one looks like it might be the one I got.

[allanlewis]

What "super admin" account?

See http://www.technize.com/2007/07/20/u...windows-vista/

[Midknyte]

It’s a kind of superadministrator, akin to the root account in Unix,

Technically, it's not a "super" admin. It's a superuser. Superuser is another name for root in unix. That why you sudo to root. super user do. But that's just splitting hairs...

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk...r_activate.htm

[allanlewis]

Technically, it's not a "super" admin. It's a superuser. Superuser is another name for root in unix. That why you sudo to root. super user do. But that's just splitting hairs...

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk...r_activate.htm

Thanks. As a long-time Ubuntu user, I'm aware of the meaning of "sudo" in Unix/Linux, but that link's very helpful.