Microsoft Update/Automatic Updates Problem

Hi, I am using Windows XP Professional SP2 with all updates available upto about 2 days ago. Just yesterday I encountered a problem with Microsoft Update. I receive the following error message when I checked for updates:

"Please change your Internet Explorer security settings
To save changes to your settings for this website, you need to enable userdata persistence for Internet Explorer. Complete the steps below, and then click Change settings to the left and try saving your changes again.
In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
Click the Security tab, click the Internet security zone icon, and then click Custom Level.
In the Settings dialog box, scroll to the Miscellaneous section.
Under Userdata persistence , select Enable.
Click OK and when the security warning dialog box appears, click Yes. "

(Error number: 0x800A0046)

Unfortunately, Userdata persistence was already enabled so I proceeded to search for the error code. I came across a number of people with the same problem but none of the suggestions fixed it for me. For some reason which I can't remember, I went into "Services ", and tried to check the "Automatic Updates" service - but I receive the following error message hen trying to access the Properties of this service:

"Unable to open service Automatic Updates for reading on Local Computer.
Error 5: Access is denied "

All these problems are for all user accounts including the administrator account.

Why would access be denied to the Automatic Updates service?

Thanks for any assistance

 

Network or stand-alone PC?

If network, domain or workgroup?

Have you tried

Code:

sfc /scannow

from a start->run line?