It's been six months since I last tried to update my WinXP laptop. I thought I'd go try fixing all the latest bugs in one fell swoop. Or something like that.

Start -> All Programs -> Windows Update

I accepted Microsoft's stupid ActiveX controls. And, it now sits there saying "Windows Update is looking for available updates... 0%" and doesn't increment itself. I've tried rebooting. I've tried deleting objects and files out of the cache. All to no avail. (And, interestingly, it seems that Microsoft puts the 'update' ActiveX controls somewhere other than "C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Program Files", where "normal" ones go.)

Any thoughts on this? For contrast, I did Windows Update on my girlfriend's Win2000 laptop, using the same network connection and it ran perfectly, so the problem is unlikely to have anything to do with network congestion between here and Redmond...

Thoughts?