Description of 0x800a138f error

Running Microsoft Updates, all appears to be ok when running the scan of your computer to see which updates are required.

When your computer attempts to download the required patches and updates, you then get prompted with the error message.

What’s Affected by this error?
Windows XP, Windows 2000 & Windows 2003 Server.

Causes
Many people started getting this error message when Microsoft made changes to it’s Windows Update. These changes involved creating additional bandwidth, and using secure connectivity HTTPS to download updates.

Resolutions

1. Make sure your computers date and time is set correctly, Double click on the time or access through Start Menu – Control Panel – Date and Time
2. Ensure SSL 2.0 and SSL 3.0 are enabled, check this from Internet Explorer – Tools – Internet Options – Advanced tab – Scroll down to the security section and make sure both boxes are ticked.
3. Check SSL certificates are installed, to check this

   Internet Explorer – Tools – Internet Options – Content tab – Certificates – Trusted Root Certificate Authorities tab. Open the Microsoft Root Certificate Authority

   Verify the Valid from date is similar to 09/05/2001 to 09/05/2021 .

   Next click on the Certification Path tab , Certificate Status , it should read This certificate is ok or certificate has expired, either of these mean it’s ok

   Do not remove the Certificate or you will experience problems.

4. Does your network use a Proxy server ? this can be seen in
   Internet Explorer – Internet Tools – Connections – LAN Settings, if you do then you’ll generally need to contact your system administrator.
5. Make sure you are using the preferred language settings for Internet Explorer, this can be accessed from the Tools Menu – General tab – Languages button and make sure this has English (united states) [en - us] at the top of the list, add in if required.
6. Remove Windows update so that it will reinstall itself next time you try to update. To delete it simply go to c:\program files\windowsupdate

   Now delete the windowsupdate directory from your windows directory\system32\windowsupdate

7. Try with any firewall software disabled, remember to enable afterwards. Then setup a firewall rule to allow secure transactions.

The 0x800a138f error is only one of the Windows update errors
Did you know 0x800a0007 has virtually the same symptoms as
0x800a138f , check out resolutions on this..

0x800a138f windows update problem “comments”

comment: Thurs 22nd July
Thanks for the article its good but not conclusive, I’ve found other factors such as country/time & date and even a slow internet connection can cause this.

computer adviser windows xp update error article