How To Update Windows Updates Or Antivirus Using Proxy Server

Are you using proxy server to connect to the Internet? Then you might have encountered the problem updating Windows operating system and the Antivirus program on your PC. Because these programs are not configured to use the system proxy settings, which is actually the proxy settings in the Internet explorer or we can say IE proxy. Rather they use WinHTTP Proxy to connect to the Internet, which is the actual system's internal proxy to get connected to the Internet. In most cases, the WinHTTP proxy is not set (or we can say that it is configured to connect directly to the internet without any proxy). So, in the following tutorial I'm going to explain how to setup WinHTTP proxy using command line to get the things done!


Medium geek level is needed to use the command line interface, but if you follow the steps accurately (which are easy to follow), you can do it yourself. So, here we go.


First of all, open the Command Line interface with administrator privileges.(It is  necessary to have administrator privileges to do so.) 


Now in the command line window type the following code:

netsh winhttp show proxy

Now, this can be understood that with this command, we are actually confirming that the WinHTTP proxy is not configured formerly. Execution of this command will bring the following window.

 In this window, if the proxy is not configured, it will show "Direct Connection". In our case it will show exactly that as shown in the image.


Now to set the WinHTTP proxy, we will type the following code:

netsh winhttp set proxy <proxy address:port address>

Now, in my case, if I want to set the WinHTTP proxy to 127.0.0.1 and the port address is 8080, then I will type as folowing:

netsh winhttp set proxy 127.0.0.1:8080

If you want to reset the proxy server then type the following code:

netsh winhttp reset proxy

If you are a computer geek and want to learn all netsh commands, then type following

netsh winhttp help

This simple procedure will help you setup the WinHTTP proxy. Now try to update your Windows or the antivirus program, in most of the cases it will easily get updated. But, in case there is some other problem and you still can't get Windows or antivirus program updated, then feel free to leave a comment below.

By Kaila Piyush
My Google Profile HackingArticles4all.blogspot.com