Update error 80072ee2 Finally Solved!!

I have worked on this problem for at least 20 hours on and off over the last
several weeks.
I have a pc which uses ICS to connect all the clients in my home network to
the internet. WU would not work on either client. Kept getting 80072ee2
failure when searching for updates. Tried every solution I could find on the
internet.

Finally I added up all the symptoms, one of which that I could not load
other https pages, could not even reach the windows update site without using
the proxy. Well, I decided the problem could be the ethernet connection from
the ICS Host to the home network.

Removed the ethernet device from within device manager, rebooted and let XP
home reinstall the device. After that, the clients could run Windows Update.

sheesh, what a hassle figuring this out was.

Anyhow, if anyone gets the 8072ee2 error and you've tried the other
solutions, try what I did. I'm thinking that there was a problem with dropped
packets or tcp/ip communication.

Thank you SOOOO much! I have had problems with Windows Update before, and
somehow managed to fix the problem. I had the same error code and tried the
recommendations from Microsoft...to no avail. It is funny how something so
simple, gets overlooked, while we brainstorm for all else!
I am glad I saw your post. I appreciate it.

I had the same problem and when I read your post I thought that some conflict exits on my nic. But apart from my physical nic I have two more virtual nics due to VMware installation.

So I unistalled VMware and update worked!!

I just resolved mine too ... make sure ur Antivirus does not block any Bonjour Service ...

My McAfee blocked that service ... so I unblocked it before the problem was solved.

I have Windows 7 for about half an hour now :S
I wanted to run the updates as wel but I got the same error.
I do not yet want to uninstall anything but is there really no other way to solve this :S
this is a quitte annoying situation. but without the updates can I still install and play counter-strike source online or wouldn't you recommend it?
I will let you know something if I do try your way

I uninstalled the current network adaptor driver and re booted. But DID NOT WORK FOR MY WINDOWS 7.

CAN YOU PLEASE ADVISE ME AS IT IS GETTING VERY FRUSTRATED SINCE LAST 4 DAYS....

No problem Damien, hope this helps you. I just had to share this with the
community since it took so long to figure out and the problem was pretty much
camoflauged because I did not have a general web browsing problem.

Below is the procedure for removing the ethernet device and then let xp
reinstall it on reboot. Incidentally, if folks are having problems like I did
and even if you are not using Internet connection sharing, your ethernet
device which connects to your gateway router could be hosed up in the same
manner and require removal and re-install. I'm pretty convinced this was a
packet/frame dropping issue:

Right click the 'My computer' icon on the desktop
Select 'Properties'
Select 'Hardware' tab
Select 'Device Manager'
Select 'Network Adapters' by clicking the '+' sign
Right click the adapter connecting the pc to the home lan or gateway router
Select 'Uninstall'
Reboot

XP will find the device again and reload the drivers for it.

If you don't want to use file and print sharing and QOS, be sure to go to
Network and Internet connections from control panel, Change settings for the
device and unselect file and print sharing and qos.

AH HA!!!!! You can add Hypervisor to that list as well.

My Windows Update suddenly stopped working several weeks ago. I run Windows Server 2008 with two virtual machines in Hypervisor. This system was set up a half year ago, then suddenly Windows Update started erroring with 80072ee2 (ERROR_WINHTTP_TIMEOUT) and 80072f78 (ERROR_WINHTTP_INVALID_SERVER_RESPONSE).

After some research, I found several reports that connected these errors to local networking problems - like a bad cable modem, network cable, etc.. I found reports it was firewall related. And also reports of malware injecting a bogus Windows Update server address into DNS.

For me, since I don't do risky things on this server box, and my LAN is very reliable, and Internet is very active and works normally, those were not at issue for me.

There was another post to do a "netsh winsock reset" from the command line and reboot. That did not help me either. And that is very similar to the above recommendation, to uninstall/reinstall the NIC driver, which is a very effective and forceful way to purge all network goo associated with the network adapter.

With this post and mention of VMWare, I finally fixed my version of the problem: simply shutting down the Hypervisor VMs and letting Windows Update run without the VMs stealing bandwidth.

Apparently the Hypervisor network card sharing and BITS (Windows Update's downloader) do not always play well together.

Amazingly, it worked for a while, but then got into a permanent failure condition.

I tried your approach, but it didn't work. However, I still thought you
might be onto something. So I tried replacing the old card with a brand new
network card, with drivers for the latest operating systems, and that did the
trick.

I disabled the Microsoft Security Essentials and the update worked. I too
was getting the 80072EE2 error.

Praise God for you man,all the forums Ive been to over the last couple of
months and it was to no avail.This is my 1st laptop and I didnt know what to
do bcuz I was scared of messing it up,I tried some of everything but nothing
worked until I tried your solution.I owe you big,I'll kill 4 u jk.

Is the keyboard of your 1st laptop brken cuz there are lettrs mssng frm
the mspelld wrds.

I never reply normally
But this works!!!

OS Windows 7

Two week of trying to figure it out.
Uninstalled all the programs from my last Windows update.

Stop all services that did not need to run. "End Tasks} Task Manger.
Run a boot up scan for Trojans or Virus.
Nothing!!!
No Go...................

Read this article

Thought I would give this a try.
Uninstalled NIC driver on reboot Windows7 did not even say found new device.
Just installed Automatically.
Bang!!!
Updates are rolling down

Make sure that your hardware options are correct re: ActiveX
Go into your router admin apge, then got to your Security tab and under there amke sure that ActiveX filtering is switched 'off'.
They are general solutions, you'll need to suit thm to your needs.

Thank you gregd thank you so much, I know this is an old post but it helped me out alot

help with error 80072ee2..
i always get this message:
your contact list is not available please try gain later
any help with this?!

On Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V, I unbound [i.e. unchecked] the TCPIP settings for the NIC that is hosting the virtual switch.

To manage the server you have to have a second NIC in the server with TCPIP bound to it .

Great find to solve this perplexing problem! I "uninstalled" NIC driver----rebooted and let Win 7 reload the driver (automatic) and SURPRISE!!! the Windows Update feature is working again. Wish I found this solution 8 hours ago.

Thanks for posting your solution.

Hi all. I have been getting the same 8072ee2 (been trying to update for weeks now without success. Internet is good because I can surf w/o problems) error on my new Win7 x64 laptop. I uninstalled my NIC driver but Windows did not automatically find a replacement. How can Win7 search and find a replacement if you have disabled your ability to get on the net? I found it by: device manager> network adaptors>Realtech PCIe card> rt click> uninstall. Anything else I can try?

If you are getting the update error while trying to update the Windows then this could be because the Windows Update Server might be getting lots of request for update and unable to handle the request. It is better to wait for some time and then try to update the same. You can check out here for more info regarding the Windows Update error 80072ee2.

I found several links with instructions for fixing the ERROR 80072EE2

1 that works very well on Windows 7, Vista, & Server 2008 is to uninstall/reinstall the NIC drivers.

But if you have a production server with a lot of configs and bindings uninstalling the primary NIC may create more problems than just the inability to check for automatic updates.

I tried several fixes but really didn't want to dump the NIC drivers just in case something gets corrupt and so I started playing around in NETSH from cmd.exe CLI.

Well so far the 20+ Windows 7 PRO/Vista Business workstations and 3 Server 2008 machines are functioning correctly again.

Pretty much you'll be disabling the NIC using NETSH as the plain old disable via right-click in NCPA.CPL <Network Connections> or the Device Manager did not work in my network.

What you'll need to do is rename your NIC to something simple. Just go, Start, Run: NCPA.CPL <hit enter>, Right-Click the NIC icon and select Rename. Example, my wired NIC was renamed to LAN on all machines affected by the Automatic Updates Error 80072EE2.

*To expedite the fix I added the following entries to a <repair.bat> script on a network drive/share & executed it from the workstations.

Code:

---

netsh interface set interface LAN disabled
netsh interface set interface LAN enabled

---

You will need to run the .bat file as Administrator or you will receive the following error: <An interface with this name is not registered with the router>

*Right-Click the .bat file and select "Run as administrator" select Continue to UAC if enabled.

Moments after the NIC is enabled you can try automatic updates hopefully with success.

All the above is performed without any system reboots.

Please reply if you have success with this method as it requires 0 changes to the system config and offers instant results.

I signed up specifically for this answer to this issue as it's been a thorn in my side for a month now and nothing was working.

For my solution when in the domain and coming up with the error 80072EE2, I ran all patches on the new 2008 R2 server including installing SP1 and Microsoft .NET Framework 4 for Windows Server 2008 R2 x64-based Systems (KB982671) not using my WSUS server.

After doing manual updates after the .NET 4 install I ran the update using our WSUS server again and the error was cleared.

My next set of servers I built them using windows server 2008 R2 with SP1, this build apparently has .NET 4 also and I did not see the 80072EE2 issue.

Hope this helps ANYONE...not everyone...but ANYONE as it was a true issue for me.

Solved this issue on Server 2008 R2 (not SP1) by downloading and installing the most recent version of Microsoft Update AND in my proxy server setup UNchecked the "automatically detect settings" box. It took both things to get the update service to begin working for us.

TRY THIS FIRST
Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum.
I have been to every other forum & followed so much advice over a span of a week I fixed the problem myself, after having microsoft, computer tech & my internet company spend hours trying to figure out why I couldnt update windows.
I had code errors 80072efe & 80072eec. Even after a complete system restore back to factory default the problem still didnt go away.
After trying everything & sourcing all the help I could get from the so called professionals, the only thing left for me to do was to uninstall my wireless device, connect my laptop to the modem/router with an ethernet cord, which prompted my computer to install a new device.Within seconds windows starting updating automatically. I waited for the updates to be completed & let the computer restart, disconnected the ethernet cord & ran windows update again. SUCCESS!!
It was something so easy and simple & I should have done this at the beggining & saved myself all the hassle of downloading fixit programs, registry cleans, registry edits, changing internet settings, prompting commands, and so on and so on. Even after remote assistance with microsoft they couldnt figure it out.
The other minor thing I did do which Im not sure wouldve made a difference or not, was replace the filter just in case it was faulty. I dont think there was anything wrong with it though because I have other computers connecting and updating with no problems. Usually your internet provider supplies you with a spare filter when you first sign up.
So I hope this helps someone out. TRY THIS FIRST