Error When Trying to Install WSUS on Server 2008

Due to one of our server's operating system corrupting on us, we had to rebuild it with a fresh install of Windows Server 2008 R2. This server amongst other things ran Windows Server Update Services for our entire network.

We got everything reinstalled and working fine from scratch until it came to installing WSUS.

Everytime we tried to install the "Windows Server Update Services" role it would fail almost immediately with the following error.

"The update could not be found. Either the update is not applicable to this computer or the update no longer exists. Verify that the update still exists and is applicable to this computer from your WSUS server or Windows Update."

Delete a Service from a Windows PC/Server

Occasionally when removing software, services remain installed on the PC/Server that are no longer required. These can be removed with a simple procedure.

First you will need to make sure the service is NOT running, by checking in the "Services" console. Stop the service if it is running. Then you will need to get the "Service Name" by viewing the service's properties.

Killing a hanging Windows Service

Services have the tendency to hang during a "Starting" or "Stopping" state causing a program to fail. Usually a reboot can correct the problem, but this is not always appropriate. There is an alternative in the form of an "sc query" and a "taskkill" commands.

The "sc query" is used to identify the PID or process identifier of a running service. This is required to perform the "taskkill" command.

To obtain the PID, first find out the exact name of the service you wish to kill. It can be found in the service properties.

Windows Server 2003 Service Timeout

Frequently on Windows Server 2003 when rebooting, a service may fail to start and the following message appears over the logon screen:

Or when trying to start or restart a service manually you may receive this message.

This is because the timeout delay is set to low for the service to complete its startup process and causes it to fail.