Microsoft Update Catalog – Add-on Fix

The Microsoft Update Catalog has historically relied on an ActiveX-style browser add-on to actually download updates from search results, and it’s common to hit an error where that component refuses to load.

The Fix

Right-click your browser’s shortcut/icon and choose Run as administrator before navigating to the Microsoft Update Catalog. Launching the browser elevated resolves the add-on loading failure in most cases, since the component needs permission it doesn’t have when the browser starts normally.

Worth Knowing

This add-on behaviour is specifically tied to Internet Explorer’s legacy ActiveX model. If you’re using a modern browser (current Edge, Chrome, Firefox), the Microsoft Update Catalog generally works without any add-on at all — clicking Download simply prompts a normal file save, though you may still need to allow pop-ups for the download links to appear. If you’re hitting this error specifically, it’s worth confirming which browser and mode you’re actually using, since the fix and the underlying cause are IE-specific.

Is This Still Relevant in 2026?

Microsoft actually removed the ActiveX add-on requirement from the Update Catalog site itself back around 2015-2016, roughly coinciding with the Windows 10 launch — the site was rebuilt to serve plain HTTPS download links that any browser can trigger, with no add-on install needed. Combined with Internet Explorer 11’s own retirement (the desktop application was fully retired in June 2022, and the underlying MSHTML engine now only survives as Edge’s IE mode for specific legacy-site compatibility scenarios), this particular fix is really only relevant to a shrinking population of environments still deliberately running old IE-based tooling, whether that’s an ancient management console, a kiosk build, or an IE-mode-only internal site. If you land on this error on a modern Edge, Chrome, or Firefox install today, it’s worth double-checking you’re not somehow being served a cached or proxied version of the old catalog experience, or that a corporate web filter isn’t intercepting the download request, rather than assuming it’s this specific ActiveX issue.

Resources

• Microsoft Update Catalog
• Firefox
• Chrome