Friday, December 11, 2009

Windows Update error 403 fix

When a user goes to the Windows Update website, they may see an error that reads :

Server Error 403-Forbidden: Access Denied
You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the
credentials you supplied.

As you can see on this thread on the Microsoft community website, this issue appears to have started some time on December 10th, 2009.

Have the user check their Windows Update log file which can be found by clicking Start-Run and typing %windir%\Windowsupdate.log and looking for an entry similar to this at the bottom of the file:

FATAL: Update required for C:\WINDOWS\system32\wuweb.dll: target version =
7.2.6001.788, required version = 7.4.7600.226

The fix I have been able to confirm here is to have the user (assuming they have the correct permissions on their system) download and install this file

This will update the failing dll file to the required version. (please note that this link will only be for this version of the windows update agent, any future updates would have a different link)

EDIT:  I'm seeing some google traffic hitting this post which is great.  If it works for you can you please leave a comment confirming?

11 comments:

Jeff Stevens said...

Found you via Twitter.

Jeff Stevens said...

PS, your link is bad. It links to:

http://www.blogger.com/%20http://download.windowsupdate.com/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/7.4.7600.226/windowsupdateagent30-x86.exe

Which is obviously a bad link. Should be:

http://download.windowsupdate.com/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/7.4.7600.226/windowsupdateagent30-x86.exe

But thanks for pointing it out and putting it out there! We really appreciate it.

Rob said...

Thanks for the heads up on the bad link, I've corrected it now.

Anonymous said...

Thanks! Found through Twitter...

Anonymous said...

hey, it works great. Now I can update.
Thanks so much.
Why on earth does Microsoft do this and not tell anyone. When I looked for their help, they acted like I was an idiot.

Thomas said...

Just found you today via Google search. Still works like a charm!
Thanks!

Patrick said...

Just found this via Google. My company still uses XP and I tried to run an update on a computer for it's 1st time and got the 403 error. Your link works great. Thanks for keeping this page up!

Anonymous said...

Worked for me. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

if that doesn't work try this from microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956708#LetMeFixItMyselfAlways

Anonymous said...

Just to let you know, the link and solution both are still working great;) Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much !!!!!!
It's easier to find software solutions via google than it is going to the manufacturers KB's anymore.