Vista Automatic update error 80070490

I upgraded my XP to Vista on a Dell 700. Everything works fine except
Automatic update does not work and gives the error message 80070490. Does
anyone have a solution or can they tell me how to manually download the
updates myself?

Here's the message I received from Microsoft support:

This error may occur if the older Windows Update engine files cannot be
replaced by Windows Update Agent 3.0 (7.0.6000.374).
To troubleshoot this issue, I suggest we first reset permission and
reinstall Windows Update Agent 3.0.
Step 1: Reset permission
================
1. Please download the subinacl.msi file from the following link and save
the installation patch onto the Desktop:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...inityDownloads
2. Please go to the Desktop and double click the downloaded file.
3. Please select the C:\Windows\System32 folder as the Destination Folder
during the installation. Later we will use this tool to reset the permission
settings on the current machine.
Note: If UAC (User Account Control) window is prompted for permission to
continue, please click Continue.
4. Click the Start Button, in the Start Search bar, type: "notepad" (without
quotes) and press Enter.
5. Copy the following commands and then paste them into the opened Notepad
window:
@echo off
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=system=f
@Echo =========================
@Echo Finished.
@Echo =========================
@pause
6. After pasting the above commands, please close the Notepad window. Choose
Save when you are prompted to save the file. Type "reset.bat" as the file
name and choose Desktop from the left panel as the save location.
7. Refer to the Desktop and right click the reset.bat file, then choose "Run
as administrator."
8. You will see a DOS-like window processing.
NOTE: It may take several minutes, please be patient. When it is finished,
you will be prompted with the message: "Finished, press any key to continue".
Step 2: Reinstall Windows Update Agent 3.0
===========================
1. Please download the file from the following link:
Windows Vista (32bit)
http://download.windowsupdate.com/v7...gent30-x86.exe
Windows Vista (64bit)
http://download.windowsupdate.com/v7...gent30-x64.exe
2. Save the file to D: drive.
Note: Please select a drive where Windows Vista was not loaded because the
file cannot be launched directly from the system root directory.
3. Click Start->Run, type: "D:\WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe /wuforce"
(without quotations) and then press Enter to install the Windows Update
engine.
Note: There is a space between "D:\WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe" and
"/wuforce"
Now, let's run Windows Update again.

It failed for me too. Microsoft then suggested performing an in-place Vista
upgrade, which did indeed fix the problem.

1. With Windows Vista running, insert the Windows Vista CD/DVD.
2. Run Setup.
3. When prompted, select Upgrade.
4. The process takes a LONG time.

Is there any further instruction from Microsoft? I have the same #80070490.
New Dell XPS 410 with Vista installed. Not a power user. Tried a few things
manually but no success.

The same issues happened to me too.
I'm running VistaUltimate64 on an HP Pavilion HDX system.
The only error I am getting is the 80070490.
The solution worked up until the last moment when I receive the FATAL ERROR
message.

I haven't found a solution yet!

Hi I was having the same problem. I am running Windows Vista Home Premium on my HP Pavillion Laptop.

I decided to use the recovery partition and revert my hard drive to factory default settings. Yet, I still could not connect to Windows Update. I could not even get onto the website, yet the rest of the internet was fine.

So, after uninstalling my antivirus, which still didn't work. I thought I might have had the Conflicker Worm, so I downloaded the removal tool, which searched but found nothing.

So, before ringing up Microsoft, I did one last test. I turned off Windows Vista Firewall, and tried again. After a good couple of minutes, it found the updates. Since I had slow internet, and had reverted back to the basics on my laptop, it had to search through about 72 updates haha.

But I didn't install them yet. I turned on the firewall, and tried searching again. It took over half an hour, just with leaving it running.

What I found weird was, I had not changed any settings in Windows Firewall when it orginally started to stop finding Windows Update. And after reverting, it still would not work. So, something must have happened to make Windows Firewall not agree with it.

Anyways I rang Microsoft and told them all of this, which they considered, but ignored. They then told me to enter a DNS number into my IP IV settings in the internet properties.

So, though they have no understanding of what actually caused this problem, nor looked into the Windows Firewall settings as to why it might have been blocking it.

So, I reccommend turning off the firewall, only for a little while, with nothing else running, and see if Windows Update works then.

And if this happens again to me, I'm just going to download a free well known firewall for my laptop.

Trust Windows to block it's own security updates -__-

I know a fair bit, and I have a lot of geeky friends who went through alol the list of possible reasons or solutions.

I had scanned it with all these programs:

Hijack This
Spybot Search and Destroy
Malware Bytes
Avast
Anti Vir

Plus the scan forthe conflicker virus.

The thing I find annoying though, one of my friends in IT said it might prossibly be the firewall, which I ignored because it was windows firewall, which I've never had a problem with before.

I did sooo many scans with antivirus, malware programs. It can't have been a registry change, or a program/spyware that hijacked my computer.

And as I said before, I couldn't even access Mircosoft's Update page, but as soon as I turned off the firewall, I got it right away.

Anyway the most important thing is - my laptop works again!

The other thing to note is, I hadn't downloaded/installed any programs befoer this happened. Normally I would have assumed it was either one of my software... so yeah that's why I was so puzzled and frustrated as to why all of a sudden it wasn't working.

> Trust Windows to block it's own security updates

Trust a user (and stupid MS Support techs) to blame such problems on the
Windows Firewall when the problem is most likely due to a hijackware
infection.

NB: A Repair Install (AKA In-place Upgrade) will NOT resolve such problems!

And your computer's still infectected. No amount of "scanning" is going to
detect & remove all of the Bad Guys.

Sorry I was just frustrated mainly because I don't see how it could have gone wrong..

And I don't believe it was anything in the registry.. as I said I downloaded nothing prior to that.. nothing that recent.

Anyway I found what Microsoft had me do to make Windows Update work:

Go to:
-Network and Sharing Center
-Manage Network Connections
-Local Area Network - properties
-Internet Protocol Version 4

Use following DNS server addresses:
Preferred: 4.2.2.1
Alternate: 4.2.2.2

They still didn't try to figure out why it was not working. But hey if this works for you, as well. I guess it doesn't matter.

I think I have the 80070490 error figured out...or at least on my machine.
all the updates that I get the 80070490 error on...have already been installed at one time or another, that's why the error. so check through your installed up date history for previous installs of the error prone updates

I spent a lot of time researching various methods to resolve my specific situation that was causing Windows Update to fail. Lots of people kept suggesting to others to run the System Update Readiness Tool that you download from Microsoft (K947821). A lot of people reported that this cleared up there issue. Lots of others, including me, were not so fortunate. I came across a thread or post somewhere where somebody recommended opening up the CBS Check Sur log in this location: C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\Check SUR. Only do this after running the System Update Readiness Tool. Then scroll down to the most recent entry and it will give you details about why Windows Update failed. Something had apparently happened with a few of my registry keys. It stated in the Log "Can't find visibilty" and "Can't find Current State" for 2 specific previous updates. It was an obvious strange registry error. I created new Visibilty and Current State keys for the ones that were missing. I tried for the thousandth time to run Windows Update and sure enough the bar kept cycling and it took like ten minutes to tell me it had found 44 updates. It's been about a year and a half since it worked. I've been manually updating the vital stuff so it wasn't such a big deal.

I generated this account just to respond to this thread... I followed every step everyone suggested here that did not involve the OEM DVD's to no avail. Then I got to LA1's suggestion and found my problem. My Gateway already had all of my updates that Windows Update was attempting to install, just by different names!! Here's how I found out:

1) Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenance > View Installed Updates
2) Sort by Name
3) Compare the Update Reference Numbers, NOT the names (ie: KB953595)
4) Launch Windows Update > Check for Updates
5) Right Click on repeat updates and Hide Updates.

The View Installed Updates panel sorts the updates kind of funky, so you may find the same number sequence show up in various locations. Try to track down each update and see if it already exists!

Just have a look on the below link. The error appears when Windows update which are installed are corrupted. To fix the same you will need to repair those corrupted Windows file. Anyhow when you run a repair installation process it does not damage any of your personal files or installed program in Windows. Re-running the update one more time might fix the issue. Anyhow you can try Windows Installation disc to run a repair setup for this.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...error-80070490

There is a small utility that can be used to fix the issue. Just click the below link and run it. It will scan your system for installed update and provide you new and better one. Also you can go in Control panel and remove updates one by one and install fresh one. The error is associated to corrupt updates and can be fixed only if that update is either re-installed or removed.

http://support.microsoft.com/mats/windows_update/