Possible Causes

• The Automatic Updates options may only be available to administrator users. This restriction could be imposed via a couple of group policy settings.
  
  

Solutions

• To lift the restriction, you have to modify the proper Group Policy settings. To access the Group Policy Editor, log into the computer using an account with administrator rights, Type "gpedit" in the Run command prompt. Navigate to "User Configuration" > "Administrative Templates" > "Windows Components" > "Windows Update" in the console tree located in the left-side window panel. In the right-side window panel double-click "Remove access to all Windows Update features." Make sure the setting is set to "Not Configured." Do the same for the "Configure Automatic Updates" setting.
  
  

Alternative

• You can also modify these group policy settings through the Windows registry. Type "regedit" in the Run command prompt to open the Registry Editor. Navigate to the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" subkey and delete the "AUOptions and NoAutoUpdate" values. Navigate to the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\WindowsUpdate" subkey and delete the "DisableWindowsUpdateAccess" value.