MS Update Down or bug?

Turned on the PC this morning and had an immediate exception dialog box pop up saying Windows Automatic Update function had a failure and had to shut down. This box repeatedly popped up when closed and could not beshut off. Looking highly "virus like". I went to task manager and shut it down since I could not do it from the Start Menu control panel. I then ran a full virus scan using Avast! which is my Anti-virus program. No bugs found.Two questions.1. Has anybody else experienced this? Is the Automatic Update server at MS down? 2. Is there a new virus out that does this (highly irritating) action?ThanksEric