Ok, I just had an issue with WSUS. None of my servers were updating and I was getting a WindowsUpdate_8024001 whenever I tried to update a Vista/Server 2008 server. And the windowsUpdate.log file was showing the following errors:

 

2009-03-11 21:28:55:852  608 1170 Misc WARNING: WinHttp: SendRequestToServerForFileInformation failed with 0x80190194
2009-03-11 21:28:55:852  608 1170 Misc WARNING: WinHttp: ShouldFileBeDownloaded failed with 0x80190194
2009-03-11 21:28:55:852  608 1170 Misc WARNING: DownloadFileInternal failed for http://computer.domain.net/selfupdate/wuident.cab: error 0x80190194
2009-03-11 21:28:55:852  608 1170 Setup WARNING: SelfUpdate check failed to download package information, error = 0x80244019
2009-03-11 21:28:55:852  608 1170 Setup FATAL: SelfUpdate check failed, err = 0x80244019
2009-03-11 21:28:55:852  608 1170 Agent   * WARNING: Skipping scan, self-update check returned 0x80244019
2009-03-11 21:28:55:852  608 1170 Agent   * WARNING: Exit code = 0x80244019

 

Not sure how it happened, but the root cause was a missing Virtual Directory on the WSUS default website. I added a Virtual Directory called SelfUpdate to the default website and pointed it to the C:\Program Files\Update Services\Selfupdate directory. I gave it full permissions, but I doubt it need all of those.

 

This solved my problem. Of course I checked the GPO to make sure that the update point was correct there. And I checked the Registry of computers to ensure that the had the update point listed correctly as well (meaning they were getting the GPO properly).

 

For those of you interested in the post mortem. I am not sure what caused the disappearance of the Selfupdate Virt Directory. I was standing up a Forefront Client Security Server with all roles and retiring my old WSUS server. Somewhere along the line it either was not created or was deleted.