Windows Update fails

I find Windows update on of the lesser stable parts of the Windows OS (XP pro). On a fresh installation my windows update failed with the following error (%windir%\Windowsupdate.log):

FATAL: Error: 0x80004002. wuauclt handler: failed to spawn COM server


Google to the rescue. The following fixed my problem (from a command prompt):

net stop wuauserv
regsvr32 wuapi.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 wucltui.dll
regsvr32 wups2.dll
regsvr32 wups.dll
regsvr32 wuweb.dll
net start wuauserv


Some extra info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910359.

Unable to connect to data.beta.mssds.com

While doing some tests on SQL Server Data Services (SSDS) at work I was unable to run my samples I created at home. At home they worked perfectly. The hostname could not be found for some dark reason. I was able to get the IP from a web based DNS lookup (http://www.zoneedit.com/lookup.html) and tried to get the REST and SOAP API to work with the IP address. The SOAP API works, but the rest API needs a valid hostname. The error included a nice call stack :), definitely some WCF love there.

The server encountered an error processing the request. The exception message is 'IsEqual: invalid host'. See server logs for more details. The exception stack trace is:
   at Microsoft.Stratus.Common.Assert.IsEqual[T](T actual, T expected, String format, Object[] args)
   at Microsoft.Stratus.Service.Metrics.RESTMessageHelper.GetAuthorityIdContainerIdFromRequest(Message& request, String& authorityId, String& containerId)
   at Microsoft.Stratus.Service.Metrics.MetricsManager.CollectMetricsAfterReceiveRequest(Message& request)
   at Microsoft.Stratus.Service.Metrics.SitkaMessageInspector.AfterReceiveRequest(Message& request, IClientChannel channel, InstanceContext instanceContext)
   at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.AfterReceiveRequestCore(MessageRpc& rpc)
   at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage2(MessageRpc& rpc)
   at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.MessageRpc.Process(Boolean isOperationContextSet)

Adding the host to my local host file solved the problem.