I've seen this bug a number of times. I go to Microsoft update and the error message says that background intelligent transfer, event log and automatic updates are not turned on. I turn the services on and still continue to get this error message. This happens going to https://www.update.microsoft.com
The reason for going to that particular url is to ensure you are really at a Microsoft site and cannot be spoofed to download some garbage from a hacker.
Finally I went to some other link like http://update.microsoft.com and this site told me to install some ActiveX control, and then I could go through the whole update process.
Seems like Microsoft needs to ensure whatever this ActiveX control is can be downloaded from their https site as well. (or if by some chance this is the work of a hacker, find and fix it from https://www.update.microsoft.com.
I don't think this is the work of a hacker as was on a new machine but without using SSL cannot neccessarily be 100% confident.