Sean-Ward.com

I was working on a students computer, and after a restart following the removal of McAfee Security Suite, Vista did not want to update.  The solution was rather simple, once I found it.  After some googling, I found this, and the solution was both simple and elegant.  The short version: uninstall the wired network connection and have it installed by the system again.  While a winsock fix of some kind might have done the job, this was just as easy to do.

1. From the Start menu, select Control Panel.
2. Select Hardware and Sound.
3. Select Device Manager.  Click Continue when the User Account Control window appears.
4. Under network adapters, remove the wired Ethernet controller/connection.
5. If Windows does not re-detect the hardware, select Network adapters (or the name of the computer at the top of the item tree) and from the menu select Action > Scan for hardware changes.