Aw, don't be embarassed! It took the techie about 2 hours of mucking in my PC to figure that out. We tried turning off the firewall, but not the firewall and the anti-v at the same time.
Thanks littlek - still, I know better. The first step in troubleshooting update issues is to make sure the machine is plugged into a live power outlet and turned on. Step 2 is verify its plugged into a live, active internet connection and properly configured for that connection type. I figured those were OK at your end, since you seem to be using that computer :wink:
Step 3, which I skipped right over, is to disable any resident security/privacy software, fire up Internet Explorer, go to Windows update, and see what happens. 1-2-3, then look for other stuff if still necessary - and very often, its unnecessary to look any further.