Win XP home SP2 - automatic update service stays disabled no matter what I do -

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

I know there are a lot of posts on this already - and I've tried all
the suggestions on the Microsoft site -

I reinstalled Windows Update, re-registered the files it says you
shoud re-register, its enabled in my hardware profile,(which seems to
be the common answer, but that doesn't help)

Its just frustrating since it wrked fine until yesterday when I
installed a few updates from Microsoft and McAfee had a small update
it auto loaded. Then the trouble started.

I just ran a complete virus scan and it found nothing - Spyhunter and
Spybot found a few trojans that I deleted and fixed, but it's still
staying disabled.

I'm on a XP home edition so I have no policy editor or anything to
check if its disabled someplace else,

I'm still searching as it seems a lot of people seem to have this
problem, but none of the common solutions I tried works.

Thanks in advance if anyone can give me any pointers.
.