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12/17/2005

Fixing Windows Update error 0xC800021F

December 17th 2005 Posted to Computers, Windows

I was trying to run Windows Update and Microsoft Update to get all the updates for a Windows 2000 installation that I’m running in a QEMU virtual machine on my Ubuntu Linux box, but it kept failing with error 0xC800021F.

Luckily, I found this page which recommended the following sequence of steps which seemed to fix the problem:

regsvr32 MSXML3.dll /s
net stop wuauserv
cd /d %windir%\SoftwareDistribution
rd /s /q DataStore
net start wuauserv

Now that it’s working, I have 27 security updates to download!

If you’re interested in Linux, please check out my new Linux tips and new site: “Tux in a row”!

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Comments

  1. rttech
    December 30th, 2005 | 4:41 pm

    Worked perfectly! Thanks!

  2. Wren
    February 17th, 2006 | 8:16 am

    Excellent advice - worked like a charm! Thanks so much!

  3. Bruno Turcotte
    March 1st, 2006 | 2:51 pm

    Thanks! It solved my problem too.

  4. faked
    March 2nd, 2006 | 7:22 am

    It solved my problem too! I’m running a Dutch version of Windows 2000 Professional SP4.

    Thanks to Marc Abramowitz and to Google for indexing this page ;-)

  5. Marc
    March 2nd, 2006 | 3:27 pm

    Wow. How annoying that Windows Update/Microsoft Update is so buggy. A lot of people must be running into this “0xC800021F” bug it seems, based on the number of comments coming in (this seems to be one of the most popular posts on my site!). Anyway, I’m glad that this fix fixes the bug for so many people.

  6. Eddy
    April 25th, 2006 | 8:10 pm

    Excellent! It works now!

  7. tech-er
    August 30th, 2006 | 2:50 pm

    Thanks so much. This worked perfectly!
    I am running W2K SP4. Today is Aug 30, 2006.
    This got the Windows Update and Microsoft Update working.

  8. Ketunraato
    September 6th, 2006 | 1:31 am

    And still thanks, even if its already end of summer. Got my stepsons comp updated, thanks to You.

  9. Matt
    September 17th, 2006 | 5:05 pm

    Wow! I’ve looked all over for this…It worked great! Thanks.

  10. Marc
    October 27th, 2006 | 5:05 am

    test

  11. Marc
    October 27th, 2006 | 5:07 am

    0xC800021F

  12. Marc
    October 27th, 2006 | 10:32 am

    0xC800021F 0xC800021F

  13. stone
    November 29th, 2006 | 11:28 pm

    it worked great! thanx for posting that :)

  14. Jason
    December 22nd, 2006 | 2:04 pm

    Thanks a ton!

  15. Kerry
    January 11th, 2007 | 1:07 pm

    Worked great…Thanks for posting this. As of Jan 2007, this error is still not part of the MSKB!! Go Figure!

    k.

  16. luke
    March 7th, 2007 | 9:53 am

    thanks a lot!!!

  17. Mike
    March 28th, 2007 | 12:42 pm

    Couldn’t ask for anything easier or better. Thanks alot
    Cheers!!!

  18. poomsky
    April 21st, 2007 | 3:39 pm

    Wow, Thanks.

  19. MC
    May 9th, 2007 | 1:33 am

    Thanks - (manual) Win2k SP4 updates now working.

  20. Paul
    May 29th, 2007 | 10:24 am

    Thanks, worked fine

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