Well, everything is working fine for me now, but there's just this little tick which puzzles me:
I can call up Windows Update fine using Start Menu, but the same can't be done for Microsoft Update, because it redirects me to this site:
A little help on solving this would be great and appreciated. I installed Microsoft Update using this guide.
Well, when I reset my VM and done all the steps of your guide again (but manually this time), I got the same results as you and @Dave-H's: that it worked without unblocking wuauclt.exe.