The problem with changing VISRETAIN is that it affects ALL Xrefs you have in the drawing. If you only want to update the layers to match those in one Xref and you have 2 or more, VISRETAIN is NOT what you want. That is what led me to write the VBA macro.
AVCAD, sorry about that. I should have noted that since I don't have R2004+ I couldn't set the reference. Once the VBAIDE opens with the error, select the cancel/end button. Still in the VBAIDE, go to the Tools pulldown menu and select References... In the references dialog you will see an item near the top that says ObjectDBX Type 1.0 library(not found)...uncheck the box next to that; scroll down and find another ObjectDBX X.X Type Library, where X.X is a higher number than 1.0, and select it. Save and close. That should fix it.