Win 7 Windows Update 80246002 Unable to run updates

Sharath:

I had this problem yesterday (Aug28). My experience may contribute to understanding this problem.

Windows 7 64-bit; Norton Internet Security.

I have been manually updating my windows system on a daily basis (mornings) and have been doing  this for many years. I started with DOS 4 and have used every Microsoft OS since. Never had a problem with Microsoft Windows Update.  Yesterday, after my usual morning update of Internet Security software and successfully running a scan, I attempted to update Windows. I got a message informing me that there was an update to the Update Agent and I needed to "click" on install in order to update the Agent, after which it would continue with the search for Windows update. Once the Agent updated it continued and came up with the error message 80246002. I subsequently tried every solution, including Mr. FIXIT. I then called Microsoft Support and chatted with the answer desk. The person asked for permission to remotely access my computer, and I reluctantly agreed. Bad decision!

After about 90 minutes he was unable to resolve the issue and in the process, had messed up my system, including removing my Internet Security. He then, without asking me, went ahead and restored my system using system restore. This involved a restart, after which I lost my internet connection. It took me a while to re-configure my internet connection. I then restored my system using an earlier backup I had made, and re-installed Internet Security which was still missing.

It is clear after everything I have read on this site, that the problem is the faulty Microsoft Windows Update Agent 7.6.7600.320 which was installed as part of the Agent update. My system is now working normally. I am NOT going to use Windows Update until  such time as I am assured that the Agent has been fixed by Microsoft. Other people I know who have Windows 7 are having the identical problem. What we need is to hear from Microsoft that they have cured the problem.

I had this issue as well. Solved by uninstalling KB2993651 - Security Update for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems.

To everyone who replied to this thread: thanks very much for your help.

If someone had told me when this began, it was all down to some issues with DNS addresses and ISP updating, I'd have told you to stop talking ****. But here we are.

I arrived back home this morning and booted the PC. It immediately downloaded the KB patch, auto in the background, without any changes from me. My ISP is Time Warner Cable. And as we all know, a couple of days ago they had a serious outage and connectivity issues.

I did not perform the changes to OpenDNS servers, but I have used those Google addresses before when TWC seems to have DNS problems and I cannot connect to work resources. It usually works.

Best of luck to everyone else who has this issue.

Great. The tech person I talked to, said that most of his team has been lambasted with calls about this. I could tell he was a little touchy about it, but was still polite with me about it. He may have not been aware that the fix is slowly spreading it's way across the country. Thanks for your response.

Everything was working again this morning without making any changes to my systems. I contacted my ISP and they did not make any changes, and they did not recommend making a permanent change to the Google DNS.

DNS changes take time to propagate through all the servers on the web, so whatever was done by Microsoft is slowly getting updated.... very slowly.