Just finished installing Windows 2003 Server with SP1.  And I got the 0x80072F8F error when I tried to “Windows Update” it.

0x80072F8F

Microsoft’s suggestions?

  1. Date/time is wrong on the server.
  2. Some DLLs need to be (re)registered.
  3. Disable the check for server certificate revocation.

None of those worked.  So I manually upgraded Windows 2003 SP2.  That didn’t work even.

And Windows activation failed.  That’ll be a clue.  I swapped the server to a different network, and Windows Update magically worked.  The underlying cause is (our internal) network related, and when I finish server testing, I’ll break out the network sniffer.

Update: we have a new proxy server, which blocks WindowsUpdate and Windows Activation.

Bookmark and Share