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Windows 7 Update Error – Code 8024402F Update encountered an unknown error!

Just finished Installing Windows 7 Enterprise on an older Lenovo Thinkpad T400, I was impressed how clean of an install I ended up with. No cluttered desktop with a mass icons that hide trial based crappy software., God this is the way to go but alas 99% of us plebs will never end up with an Enterprise disk or install! (I recently got to use a newer Lenovo with a factory windows 7 install from and the crap where is still there!!)

When I tried to do a Windows Update I got a nasty surprise; Code 8024402F windows Update encountered an unknown error. Windows provided a help link that yielded no info on the code. Searching the interTubes I came across folks who have been having this error from Vista days, yikes! I finally stumbled across this article that initially talked about esoteric fixes such as adjusting the clock but buried towards the end of the post was the fix! Turn off active-X filter on your router!! I went over to my router’s web interface and found the setting (Security Tab > Firewall) and unchecked the box. Sure enough Windoes now happily ran it’s updates and downloaded a 200Mb update without any problems.

So there you go! Not sure if this will help you and not sure if most standard routers even filter Active-X (I have an old hacked Linksys running DD-WRT firmware so you could say I was a bit of a router aficionado.) The thing that gets me is I’m sure the error message could of been a bit less cryptic; something like “Network error” or “Active-X error” would of gotten me closer to the problem.

But, I have to say that the Window 7 Enterprise Editions install ran flawlessly on this 3 year old Lenovo and I am loving playing around with Windows 7 in it’s uncluttered state and yes, that is quite a statement coming from a Mac guy!