Windows Update fails with code 80244019

Question

I just found that Windows Update is failing and hasn't installed any updates for a little more than a month.

It says:

Windows could not search for new updates
There was a problem searching for updates
Errors found: Code 80244019

This article at Microsoft suggests it might be a virus: Windows Update error 80070422, 80244019, or 8DDD0018

The operating system is Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center.

Solution 1

I've found an online discussion that suggests that this has been happening because of increased load of Windows 10 distribution.

What worked for me was disabling "Give me updates for other Microsoft products when I update Windows".

Solution 2

What worked for me was going into services.msc and restarting the 2 services bits and windows update services; Background Intelligent transfer service.

Comments

[magicandre1981]

80244019 = WU_E_PT_HTTP_STATUS_NOT_FOUND (Same as HTTP status 404 - the server cannot find the requested URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). This looks like a network issue

[Digger]

I agree with @magicandre1981 that it most likely is a network issue, perhaps on the Windows Server end. I've had luck in the past by just waiting a bit for said Windows problem to clear up....YMMV, of course.

[lpacheco]

I did: "(...) disabling use of Windows Update for updating other Microsoft Products might fix it. In fact, it worked."

[yurkennis]

This answer just helped me under Windows 7 Professional x64 edition, thanks a lot!

[cvocvo]

Worked for me on Server 2008r2

[wjandrea]

Worked for me on Windows 8.0

[wjandrea]

@Ramhound I fixed it.

[Chad Cooper]

Also works on Server 2012R2.