Windows Vista: Windows Update fails–stuck at “Preparing to install updates”

I’ve been having a terrible time today updating one of my virtual machines ready for the next round of testing that I need to do. The darned thing was stuck on “preparing to install updates” for a good hour, with no discernable network traffic, and yes, the WU service was running as it should.

Thankfully I was able to fix the problem.  Here’s how, in hopes y’all may find useful:

1. Click Start, Run, type: cmd.  Right click the Program Menu entry that appear and select “Run as Administrator”.  Press Enter. Run the following command in the opened window:
    
   Net stop WuAuServ
2. Wait for the process to finish.
3. Click Start, Run, type: %windir% and press Enter.
4. In the opened folder, rename the folder SoftwareDistribution to SoftwareDistributionOLD
5. Click Start, Run, type: cmd.  Right click the Program Menu entry that appear and select “Run as Administrator”. Press Enter. Run the following command in the opened window: 
    
   Net start WuAuServ
6. Wait for the process to finish.
7. Reboot.