With early versions of Windows xP, Microsoft has recognized a problem with the Automatic Updates service, but haven’t released a “working” patch for the issue.

But here’s a fix!

Download my homemade WUFIX.zip

This ZIP contains 3 files:

One batch file (wufix.bat) to stop the necessary services for removing the faulty Windows Update DLLs
Another batch file (reloadwu.bat) to reinstall the Windows Update Agent with the included
installer file (WindowsUpdateAgent20-x86.exe).

Additionally you can isolate the Automatic Update process to run in its own svchost.exe instance.

Use SC (which can be found in Windows xP/2003) to change the configuration of a service, including the “service type” – “shared” or “own”.
So, using wuauserv as a guinea pig, one could execute from a CMD prompt to cause the service to run in its own process:

sc config wuauserv type= own

The Automatic Update service will need to be restarted for this to take effect.
To change it back to a shared service, use the following command:

sc config wuauserv type= share

NOTE: In both commands, the space after the ‘=’ character is critical. For the change back to “shared” to take effect, the system will need to be rebooted as the “original” SVCHOST group that this service was a part of is already running.