Windows Update not working

[Tranquility_Base]

I'm having problems using windows update perhaps for the last month. I go to the windows update website and it stops at the part where its checking for the latest version of windows software. It doesnt crash, it just stops, and doesnt show the icon to scan the computer. When I try to do tht manually by clicking on the welcome page on the left and then clicking the scanning icon, it tells me that the i need to reload the page, I do tht and it still doesnt work.

I tried disabling some of services.msc recently, but i left automatic updates on automatic. Any idea why this is happening?

System is WinXP home edition, service pack1.