MU (Microsoft Update) fails, Error number 0xC8000408

[Michel Merlin]

My backup PC (2003 DIY desktop, W2K, IE6) has been duly updated each month for years using MU http://update.microsoft.com , last time was last week on 13 Oct (2nd Tuesday).

 

Today, discovering (on another PC, 2006 12in laptop, Win XP Pro, IE6) that a lot of updates have been posted AFTER last Tuesday, I came on my backup PC and launched MU. This time it launched a NEW big splash screen saying (approx, from my memory) "New! With Microsoft Update you can now update Windows and Office at the same time!" (yes, Microsoft just discovered that itself had built MU some years|decades|centuries ago).

 

Then it stopped with:

 

« [Error number: 0xC8000408]

The website has encountered a problem and cannot display the page you are trying to view. The options provided below might help you solve the problem. ... Windows Update Newsgroup ... » (Yes, Microsoft is again forgetting it has just replaced for the 1001st time "Windows Update" with "Microsoft Update". Just the kind of carefulness, consistency and care to customers that we unfortunately receive more and more often from Microsoft).

 

I retried with the old trick that always worked in the ancient times ( https://update.microsoft.com ), but this times it failed, same way.

 

(Note: Please don't tell me Windows 2000 of IE6 are now crap-statufied and must be replaced with not-yet-crap-statufied Windows Seven and IE8. I have seriously tested IE7 twice (in 2006 and 2007), I have other things to do and other IT maintenance tasks and equipment projects, and only flat brains could hope to turn my opinion. And Mcrosoft would achieve better credibility by recovering its former level of reliability in prodcuts than by further increasing the thickness of the marketing layer. I know these precautionous phrases will draw wrath from some unoccupied flat brains, but given precedents, omitting them would draw even more of the same. Sorry to the good guys around).

 

Versailles, Mon 19 Oct 2009 17:44:50 +0200