Windows Update

Windows Store Error 0x8024500c

Posted on by Adam Fowler

I was getting this error company wide when trying to install any app from the Windows Store on a domain joined computer. The store was fully navigational, but any app I tried to install would instantly error. Showing the details would reveal Error Code 0x8024500c.

This is a fairly standard error code and there’s a lot of reasons already posted online; but for me it was one simple Group Policy setting:

Do not connect to any Windows Update Internet locations

Help:

Even when Windows Update is configured to receive updates from an intranet update service, it will periodically retrieve information from the public Windows Update service to enable future connections to Windows Update, and other services like Microsoft Update or the Windows Store.

Enabling this policy will disable that functionality, and may cause connection to public services such as the Windows Store to stop working.

Note: This policy applies only when this PC is configured to connect to an intranet update service using the “Specify intranet Microsoft update service location” policy.

Back in the Windows 7 days, it makes sense to disable this if you want to force clients to only use your WSUS servers and control the experience. However, it completely breaks the Windows Store!

You can find this policy under Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update.

Note that this doesn’t seem to break the private Business Store section if you have that configured up, which can be a nice way of controlling the apps your users see.

Update 14th December 2017

A friend pointed this out to me – before changing this setting, be aware that there’s a bug with Windows 10 Pro that is fixed in KB4053580: 

Excel and Word Macros Broken with Windows Update

Posted on by Adam Fowler

A problem popped up recently where an Excel Macro file wasn’t working – there was a button to run the macro, but the button wouldn’t even click. This is despite all the security settings being their lowest – e.g. Enable all macros (not recommended; potentially dangerous code can run).

A friend pointed me in the right direction for this one, and the cuprit was Windows Update KB2553154 which I don’t think has actually been pulled yet (although InfoWorld reports others have). The patch is designed to fix a vulnerability.

There’s a great post on StackOverflow about this, along with a fix from user John W  that I can confirm works:

From other forums, I have learned that it is due to the MS Update and that a good fix is to simply delete the file MSForms.exd from any Temp subfolder in the user’s profile. For instance:

C:\Users\[user.name]\AppData\Local\Temp\Excel8.0\MSForms.exd

C:\Users\[user.name]\AppData\Local\Temp\VBE\MSForms.exd

C:\Users\[user.name]\AppData\Local\Temp\Word8.0\MSForms.exd

Of course the application (Excel, Word…) must be closed in order to delete this file.

I actually just deleted everything in the Temp folder. The user didn’t need to log off or anything, just opened up the Excel Macro template and it instantly worked.

You could use group policy preferences to delete these .exd files if you don’t want to manually remove it, but hopefully you don’t have too many people in your company affected by this. Otherwise, it might be a good idea to hold off on 2553154 as MS may release a hotfix or re-patch the patch.

Updated: Affects Word also.