So I realize this isn’t exactly security related, but I felt compelled to post since it relates to errors with the Windows Update service. I recently dusted off some old virtual machines which were running Windows Server 2003 and when attempting to update via WU I encountered error 0xC80003FB and 0xC80003FA. These errors do not quite explain what your potential issues may be and in searching for the answer I came across some posts which actually worked and others which left me scratching my head. If you encounter this error, here are a few things to try:
View the contents of your Windows Update log file to see what it is complaining about. This file is located in %windir%/WindowsUpdate.log. The last few lines will show your most recent attempt at running WU. If you see the following lines:
WSUS server: http://name ofyourinternalWSUSserver
WSUS status server: http://name ofyourinternalWSUSserver
Target group: (name of the group this system was in…may be Unassigned Computers)
Windows Update access disabled: No
Then your system was trying to connect to WSUS. What I found interesting is that I had allowed this system to go out to the internet for updates as part of the WSUS options, yet it failed. Ask yourself if you added this machine to a WSUS installation and then deleted WSUS. I was testing WSUS at some point in the past and had pointed this system to the WSUS server for updates which is not longer part of my test environment. Here are some steps you can try that worked for me:
Stop the Windows Update service by going to Start->Run->service.msc
Backup, then delete, the registry key located at HKLM/SOFTWARE/Policies/windows/windowsUpdate (you’ll notice this has the WSUS server info you may have entered at some point in the past)
Restart the Windows Update service and go Windows Update
If this doesn’t work continue on to the next steps (I have a bad habit of trying many things at once when troubleshooting)
Stop the WU service again. Go to %windir%\SoftwareDistribution and find the DataStore directory. Delete the .edb file and Logs directory from this folder and restart the WU service. Try to connect to WU. If this doesn’t work, you can stop the WU service, rename the Software Distribution folder to something else, restart the WU service and again run Windows Update. This will rebuild that entire directory and should remove any corruption you had in these files that was causing an issue. In the end, a combination of removing the reg key and deleting the database worked to get updates flowing again. Hope this help.
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