Windows Vista Update - Screen blank missing text

[Paul]

I have recently developed this problem when I run windows update. When the
screen launches all text is missing. Also for some reason the it has
switched to not automatically download and install any updates.

Other users in different forums have also encoutered this issue
http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=775603

[Robert Aldwinckle]

That discussion mentions a special web app?
If the HTML(?) is cached you can use the TIF Viewer to find the URL.
In fact, if it is cached you could then drag it to an open Notepad window
as an alternative to View Source (which I imagine to be functionality that
a web app would not provide.) (Alternatively, use FiddlerTool or netcap, etc.)

What happens if you try using IE7 instead?
If you do that you can use View Source to check if the text is really missing.
If the URL is different that could be significant too.

BTW if this is really about a Vista only feature you may get better response
by posting in a Vista specific newsgroup. Cross-posting to Vista now...

[Paul]

I am not use windows update on the web. This is strictly through the control
panel application, "Windows Update". Windows Vista is installed with IE 7,
so no issue there. Thanks for the cross post.

[dean-dean]

Try this. Right-click Computer and choose Manage. Open Services in the
right-hand pane. Double-click on SL UI Notification Service. By default,
it's Start-up type is Manual. If it's not set that way, change it. Another
service, Software Licensing, should be set to Automatic. If Software
Licensing is not running, click on Start.

Thanks for the suggestion, the SL UI service was set to manual. I changed it
to automatic. The software licensing was set to automatic. I restart ed the
pc and its still not working.....missing text. I cannot set automatic
downloading.

[dean-dean]

Sorry, but you may have misunderstood. The SL UI service should be set to
Manual. Set that service to Manual, and set Software Licensing to Automatic,
if it's not that already, and then restart your computer.

Your problem has been cropping up with some regularity by other posters in
the newsgroups for Vista, but unfortunately there's no silver bullet for
fixing this, that I'm aware of. You could try this, after your computer has
restarted:

Right-click Command Prompt (in Start Menu\Programs\Accessories) and choose
Run as Administrator. Type (or Copy and Paste) the following commands,
pressing Enter after each one (you should get a pop-up message after each
command):

regsvr32 wuapi.dll

regsvr32 wuaueng.dll

regsvr32 wups.dll

regsvr32 wups2.dll

regsvr32 wuwebv.dll

regsvr32 wucltux.dll

Close Command Prompt, and try Windows Update again.

[Paul]

I restored the SL UI service back to manual start. Restarted. I opend a
command prompt as admin, regsvr32 all dll files (success for all). I ran
windows update and still no text. Unfortunately this did not work.

I posted some images of the screens on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10805483@N08/?saved=1

Any other ideas would be deeply appreciated.

[pelda]

I have the very same problem on one of laptops. I have tried that winmgmt
think but it did not help. The other "symptom" nobody jet noticed is if I go
to services and want to check wuauserv service it has failed to load
description file message (see screen) and also when I try to view properties
of that service it gives me these errors:
http://sweb.cz/martas.pelda/pic1.jpg
http://sweb.cz/martas.pelda/pic2.jpg

according to register Description file shoud be in system32/wuaueng.dll
which is there and seems to be ok.

perhaps this will help a little with solving this problem.

Thanks

[dean-dean]

Thanks Pelda. Your screen shots are very helpful. Could you try this:

Right-click Command Prompt (in Start Menu\Programs\Accessories) and Run as
Administrator. Type (or Copy and Paste) the following two commands:

sfc /SCANFILE="C:\Windows\System32\en-US\wuaueng.dll.mui"

Press Enter. Then:

sfc /SCANFILE="C:\Windows\System32\wuaueng.dll"

Press Enter. Does Windows Resource Protection show any errors for these two
files?

[martyp]

I've been lurking for a while to see if any answers were posted to this problem. For the past several weeks I, too, have been "suffering" from a Windows Update screen devoid of text. None of the proposed solutions worked. That was the bad news. Here's the good news. I believe I can help. My Windows Update works again. Before I share the steps I took to fix the problem, let me first say that I'm fully aware that there are people out there who can come up with shortcuts based on what I post. Great. Whether I took too many steps to accomplish the goal or not, it worked. It was a long, tedious process, but here goes. Please let me/us know if it works for you.

Note: The following assumes that you have, or have access to the original Vista 32-bit .iso or can otherwise utilize the file install.wim contained within the .iso.

1. Place the original Vista .iso on your hard drive.
2. Extract install.wim from the iso.
3. Extract all c:\windows\system32\wu*.* files from install.wim.
4. Place all extracted wu*.* files in their own folder, e.g., C:\wu for later use.
5. Run Start, All Programs, Accessories. Right click on Command Prompt and click on Run as administrator.
6. Navigate to your System32 directory.
7. In order to replace current wu*.* files in the System32 directory, you'll need to first take ownership of each of them as follows:
Run: takeown /f "path and file name" [note: I ran this command for each of the wu*.* files, one at a time]
then
Run: cacls "path and file name" /G <your username>:F
8. Replace all wu*.* files using those from c:\wu
9. Register each of the original wu*.dlls in System32 - for example (regsvr32 wuapi.dll)
10. Reboot
11. Place Windows Update in manual mode as a test and run it.

That’s it

I have not yet placed Windows Update in automatic mode, but I suspect (hope) it'll work.

By the way, one of the hints that the wu*.* files in Windows\System32 needed replacement with the originals was that I noticed that a couple of the file dates changed to some date in June of this year. That's what broke Windows Update.

I spent so much time trying to fix this problem that I stopped questioning whether a solution made sense! I had already regsvr32'd every dll in sight, drank every potion, rubbed every magic ring, etc. I just want to give you a heads-up. After fixing Windows Update, a day later some wu*.* files got corrupted - again. At least this time I was prepared and fixed it pretty easily. Guard against those files being touched by using a program such as Folder Guard Pro - not to guard all of \System32, but rather the wu*.* files. The only mystery remaining is what the heck insists on futzing with those files.

[martyp]

Regarding my previous post, for step 3 (extracting the wu*.* files from install.wim) I used the latest 7-zip beta

iZac - I'm glad it worked. You've shown that there's more than one way to gain access to those stubborn wu*.* files in \system32.

You wouldn't believe how much time I spent solving this problem. In retrospect, re-installing Vista would have been the shorter route, but at least now I know how to fix it if it happens again.

The real questions is: how did those files get changed / corrupted in the first place? That's a question I'd like an answer to.

In the meanwhile, Windows Updates are working again in all modes (automatic, manual, etc.) and entries in the WindowsUpdate.log in \Windows appear normal.

iZac and Paul - have you ever used TweakNow PowerPack? I ask because I'm suspicious that this program is the cause of the Windows Update problem. If I'm correct, after I ran it today some of my wu*.* files changed (became corrupted). I'm just not 100% sure of the timing of the corruption.

[iZac]

Yes it worked! Thanks! =)

The cacls "path and file name" /G <your username>:F command didn't work. It
said the system could not find the file. So what I did was that I right
clicked on every file which filename started with "wu" and choose properties.
On the "security"-tab I gave me (the user) full access to the file.

When that was done I rebooted the computer and started it in "secure mode"
and replaced all "wu"-files using those I extracted from the install.wim.
Secure mode was needed because otherwise I could not replace the "wu"-files,
hence they were being used by an application.

I could replace every file except for WUDFPlatform.dll, which were in use.
Also I could not register the .dll-files which filenames started with WUDF,
but evidently it worked anyway.

Thanks a lot for the help!

[MowGreen [MVP]]

Thanks for posting this, Marty. Those steps are way over the head of the
Typical Home User.
I'm hoping that it's a scripting or MSXML issue caused by an
update/antivirus software/ or a reasonable facsimile thereof. If it were
just caused by an update then all Vista Users would have been afflicted
by this.

I've made an inquiry with the Update Team and am/am not holding my
breath on a fix for this puzzling issue.

[ed@anuff.com]

Just came across this after trying every other possible solution and
I'm happy to say it worked, although I also had to download and run
the Guided Help program 836941.exe from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/836941
to fix the error 80072ee2 that I subsequently got when I clicked
"Check for Updates"

FWIW, taking ownership and the cacls stuff shouldn't be necessary if
you're running the command line as administrator and you use the
command line copy command to copy the files. Also, you want to do
this after Vista has just started so none of the files are in use.

The fix doesn't seem to work for me. I replaced all of the WU*.* files in my
system 32 but the WUDriver.dll and the WUaueng.dll will not register, they
get a 0x80070716 error code "call to DLLRegisterServer failed" I've extracted
them a few times to no avail, anyone have any ideas?

[Tratcher]

Hmm. Thanks for the suggestion. It didn't fix the problem, but it did lead
me towards the solution.

I followed your directions as close as possible. (I generally used the UI
rather than command line, but the result is the same.) The UI didn't get any
better, and the actual windows update system stopped working.

I then went to remove your fix using the shadow copy rollback option on each
file. (I'd checked for shadow copies before and had not found any.) Once
all the files had been reverted to their previous state, everything started
working again!

Theories: I had some disk corruption issues a few weeks ago, about when all
this broke. I bet one of these files got corrupted. I think windows
wouldn't show me a shadow copy because it didn't think anything had actually
changed. By replacing the files it let me then access good shadow copies
that I used to fix the system. I also suspect your fix would have worked for
me if I had not used a SP0 installer disk to try repairing an SP1
instillation.

Hint: I believe this could be done without safe mode by skipping the files
that are currently in use (that won't allow overwriting). When I rolled back
I did the easy files first and the UI started working (after restarting the
service).

Thanks!

[vince]

I try these steps and these are the results
what will i do next?


sfc /SCANFILE="C:\Windows\System32\en-US\wuaueng.dll.mui"
- Windows Resource Protection did not recognize that file as a system file
that can be verified or repaired. Check the file and try again

Press Enter. Then:

sfc /SCANFILE="C:\Windows\System32\wuaueng.dll"
- Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violation.

Please help!!!