I've been trying to download windows update and I

That is some corrupt files in action. Reinstall your Operating System (Windows) or install a new one (Linux). Make sure to back up any files that you have before reinstalling, as files will not be preserved during the process.

To fix it,
Click the start pearl, type CMD on the search line, right click CMD.exe on the Menu above, click "run as Administrator". On the command line type the following command:
reg delete HKLM\COMPONENTS /v StoreDirty

also navigate to C:\Windows\winsxs, and delete a file called "Pending.xml" [its on every vista install if you can see it or not]

you will need to enable "show all files" and uncheck "protected operating system files" from "folder options" in control panel

If the player is showing up in your Windows' Device Manager under "portable devices" with a yellow "!":

1.) Right-click the yellow "!" and choose "update driver".
2.) When given the option to connect to Windows Update, choose "no, not this time" and click next.
3.) Choose "Install from a specific location (advanced)" and click next.
4.) Choose "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install" and click next.
5.) Click the "Have Disk" button. Browse to C:\Windows\inf and choose the file marked "wpdmtp.inf"

I can't believe the generic players have such crappy support when so many people have this problem! I think the Windows file problem might be caused by "compressing old files" when you do a disk cleanup.