ANONYMOUS  This worked. Why that other guy trashed this program in his review is beyond me. Perhapse he is some sort of developing superstar with major predjudices against pseudo-amateur scripting. Maybe he wishes he was the guy who wrote this thing. I don't know much about this scripting stuff so perhapse there could be some side effect to this thing. All I know is that I can once again use software update with no permission hangups. Thank you guy for writing this script, it has eased my mind and my mac.  
(Version 1.1)

ANONYMOUS  Hi.

Firstly, thanks to the developer for trying to fix a problem that has been bugging me for weeks!

However, has anyone got any thoughts on what further action to take when:

(a) I have run this fix, then tried again to run the same software updates again, and I *still* get te same error message this tries to fix? and:

(b) I have fixed permissions several times to no avail.

(c) I have NEVER had developer tools installed, nor never needed to.

Finally, let me apologise for asking this in the reviews section, but I cannot find how to email the developer anywhere.

TIA, Pete, UK  
(Version 1.1)

ANONYMOUS  I have to say that this actually worked when repairing permissions was not enough to get by in installing the latest security update. Nice work!  
(Version 1.1)

ANONYMOUS  And again a negative reply...

Let's make one thing clear. This script is to be used when repairing permissions does not work. In that case it could help the user. You don't have to use it. If you read the description you would know what it does and why you would use it.

I know this script helped me, that is why I made it. So that it might help some other mac users with SU problems.

And why so negative about this? It's not like this could harm your system. If it helps that's very nice, if it doesn't find another fix or email me with a question. Don't bash something because simply repairing your permissions works for you...  
(Version 1.1)

RICH  DO NOT USE THIS TRASH!

You normally get comments like this from people who haven't got a clue, so here's my justification:

I suffered the problem you described when Software Update tried to install "Security Update 2004-09-07", but a simple permissions repair did the trick. So why this script?

The link to your homepage from here is broken: "web.macosx/nl" instead of "web.macosx.nl"

There, you have an anchor containing the text "SoftwareUpdateFix.zip" which links to a file called "SoftwareUpdateFix.dmg".

What kinds of errors have you dropped into the script? Let's take a look shall we?

do shell script "cp /Volumes/SoftWareUpdateFix/tar /usr/bin/" with administrator privileges

Attempting to overwrite '/usr/bin/tar', without even checking for its existence is the WORST bit of scripting I've ever seen! How does an inexperienced user know the version of 'tar' you're distributing doesn't contain a handy little exploit? They don't, because you do it silently! And as a straight permissions repair makes the software update work anyway, why go replacing people's software at all!?

Besides, your disk image is called "SoftwareUpdateFix", not "SoftWareUpdateFix". Good thing that cp has been made case insensitive now, isn't it?

Maybe you should read a few programming books before releasing any more "helpful" trash like this again...  
(Version 1.1)

TIM  It indeed repairs your permissions, which I admit is not nessesary but could be usefull. But it also copies the "tar" needed by Software-Update to the right location. The "tar" file not being there is the cause of the problem, which is thus fixed by this script. The permission repair is to be sure that was not the problem.   
(Version 1.0)

ANONYMOUS  I'm guessing this is completely unneeded if you instead use Apple's Disk Utility to fix permissions.  
(Version 1.0)