Why Can't Microsoft Get Windows 7 Update To Work Properly?

"Checking for updates" takes forever. In my case, I give up after 2 hours. I have tried every fix that I found on-line to no avail. Searching on-line, there are lots of complaints in the last 2 weeks or so about update not working properly: either the check never returns (as in my case) or folks cannot get the update to finish downloading.

So what the heck is going wrong with Microsoft? Is this a deliberate attempt by Microsoft to force folks to move from Windows 7 to Windows 10? Are the Microsoft folks showing their incompetence? Or what? Does anyone have any incite into what is going on?

 

Many threads here, in a simple search, point to slowness in Windows 7 updating.
Leave it for much longer, ie overnight or when going out for several hours.

 

Make sure you do a chkdsk and clean system.Your HDD might have an error that might be slowing down the process.And may be do a defrag

 

Your advice is appreciated. Note that frag on C & D is < 2%, I do chkdsk ever month or so (no problems found), run several malware scans twice each month (no problems found), and check the HDD for errors using manufacturer's software. No problems ever found. The problem is not me. There are lots of folks online in the last 2 weeks or so complaining about update.

Note that this morning I DID get update to work. I started the check at 6:30 AM EST. Took 1 hour 35 minutes for update to list the open updates. Once the list was created, I had no problem choosing which updates to install and then installing them.

The problem is the incredible slowness of update to create the list in the first place.

 

I'm wondering if it's got anything to do with whether you have Windows Update off of automatic. Couple of Win 7 systems here and both took around two hours yesterday to get the list of updates, and download didn't start that quickly either, about half an hour before downloading actually started. I suspect it is Win 10 related, and that MS might be taking the view that if a system is not on automatic then the owner is deliberately blocking their attempts to upgrade it. Probably wide of the mark but possible all the same. Are ppl with automatic turned on also experiencing these delays?

 

That was "quick".
I have the updates listed, selected 7 to download and I've been going 2 1/2 hours waiting for the download of under 60 MB to start! Yup 2 1/2 hours staring at 0KB of 0% downloaded.

I'm going to see how long it takes to actually get the downloads - no matter how many hours it takes.

I have 4 computers in the house and won't even bother with the other three fo a few days.

 

Ever thought about getting Win 10 plodr?

 

Same issue here since yesterday...my solution was to simply wait out the seemingly stalled downloading. On this pc, the updates finished in about 30 minutes. Good luck.

 

Earthling, Windows 7 is the last version of Windows I'll run.
I've no intention of upgrading to 10 nor buying a computer with Windows 10 installed. Microsoft has lost me as a customer.

It took 2 hours and 54 minutes for the 7 updates to download and install.
I'll see about the other 3 updates in a day or two for that computer.

 

I very much agree. I can think of no good reason to spend the time to upgrade to 10 when 7 meets my needs. Plus I do not have confidence in Microsoft's handling of updates, customer service, etc. I follow the dictum - If it ain't broke, why fix it!! Windows 7 works fine for me, so why switch?

One other thing.... I am dismayed as the large quantity of security fixes every month. We are talking 50MB to 100MB per month!! As my wife asks - "Why can't they get it right after all these years?" Yeah, the software is complex. But come on, every month or so there are huge security holes that have to be plugged. SO why switch to 10 when they can't even get 7 right????????????

 

I have no choice in the matter when it comes to my laptop poldr.

My laptop is to far advance to the point that my laptop is not ACPI compliant with windows xp.

And when i try to run windows 7 the system runs fine but when i go to shut down it will have blue lines accross the screen.

Never have i run into that problem.

I wish i could run windows 7 and xp on this laptop.

Windows 10 run's fine i have no issues with it.I have not even had a blue screen of death yet and i have had it for 7 months now.

 

Yeah, I know, I was just teasing Don't quite get why though, 10 is certainly behaving well on both a tower and a laptop here.

 

And I bet the same was true when you went from XP to 7

 

Actually no i did not have any issues with going to windows seven on my desktop.It was quit easy.I even now have flash drive sticks that have windows xp,7,10 on them and they install fine.

 

If you want to try some thing you can try Deleting Cache Files some times when the Cache Files be come full it would some times cause errors and issues.C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download You may have to show hidden files to browse there.Then select all the files (Ctrl+A) and delete them.

 

I generally do not upgrade an OS. I use the one that came on the computer.
I broke the rule once. I bought a laptop with ME on it. It did work well for several years, unlike people who had lots of problems with ME. Then I decided I wanted Windows 2K. The sticker on the laptop indicated it would work. I couldn't get 2K to install because everytime I tried to install, the screen went black.

It was one of only two times I updated the BIOS. I found the text file of a BIOS update and it said, "fixed the problem of the display going black when trying to install Windows 2000". I took the plunge, updated the BIOS and was then able to install Win 2K. I had that laptop for 10 years until I e-cycled it.

Since I knew I wanted Win 7 and did not want 8, I bought a desktop and two netbooks with Win 7 on it so we are prepared for the future. I also added more RAM to my desktop that came with XP, and purchased a Win 7 upgrade disk for $40 so I was prepared to upgrade it when XP ended support.

I also bought an Android tablet to get used to surfing on it when 7 is no longer safe.

I've been testing various linux distro from USB sticks to see what we can surf on with out netbooks when 7 is no longer patched. I think I have it covered.

I'm actually hoping that there will be laptops/netbooks with Android installed closer to 2020 when I might look for hardware to buy.

 

I think windows 7 will be outdated soon and no longer be able to use updates.2020 is when windows 7 will end its support life and until then in a couple of years it will start to decline down words.

 

I like Windows 10 a lot and my usage on 3 systems tells me it is a lot more like Win 7 than 8. The only criticism I have of Win 10 is not even really about performance - I think it outperforms Win 7 and 8 - but the truly awful privacy issues. However, third party developers have done wonders to make it easy peasy to stop that exceptionally well so that criticism, with something like O&O ShutUp10 (and there are a few others similar programs now), no longer applies.
I have zero problem with the automatic install of important updates. They are far fewer than you get right now on Vista, 7 or 8. I have separate quite harsh views about the history of millions of Windows users suffering badly, at their own fault and expense, from not updating much or ever. I applaud MS for making them automatic.
Anyone who uses Linux knows full well that their updates are a waterfall compared to Windows.
Windows 10 is good. I wouldn't leave it past the free deadline if I was a Win 7 or 8 user.

 

@plodr - you obviously like 7 - who doesn't? - but you've still left me totally unclear as to the real reason you decided you wouldn't ever go beyond it. I think it's a shame, you are missing out on what appears to be easily the best Windows version yet and it can only get better, unlike 7.

Wholeheartedly agree.

 

I have completely modded windows 10 to the point where it is a stripped down version of it.

And it runs so fast

My system load time is at 45 seconds.This is as fast as i can get it with out an SSD drive.

I basicly completely disabled all of the junk that i don't use or need to use.

 

Thanks Earthling for redirecting me over here. I've been doing my research on this problem. Not only does it seem to be affecting a lot of people very negatively, but it seems Microsoft is being VERY malicious in not addressing it. I've found some helpful information, none of it the quicky solutions, but in real terms of what takes the least time, it sounds like Ken Morley's suggestion of downloading these two updates in advance, and then redoing the re-install of your operating system with his instructions is (unfortunately realistically), probably the shortest time fix for this problem.

Here's his article: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...-updates/ff3c442e-79a6-40d3-ac35-29e130cebef1

Having read this article, I've run into the same question that another poster had, and that is, how do you manually download these two updates (download in advance: KB3083710 and KB3102810), and once you have them, how do you manually install them and where do you install them to and things like that?

If you don't like the above because you can't or don't want to reinstall your Win7 OS, there are some other articles with other helpful ideas, but they actually take a lot more time than simply reinstalling. There's this article:

http://www.canadiantech.info/for-techies/windows-update-not-responding/

And yesterday somewhere on Microsoft, I found an article for IT people only, which gave lots and lots of suggestions, but I've mislaid the link. Hopefully I can find it again and will post it if I do.

Let us prevail!

 

I think 3083710 (Oct. 2015) has been superseded by 3138612 (Mar. 2016). This is an update to the Update Client.
3102810 was issued in Nov. 2015.
I have both these updates installed.
See how well these worked for me in April.
Smoke and mirrors.
Most of the fixes people mention as absolutely fixing the problem have not worked and I have 4 computers so I can't say well it must be my computer because all 4 have the problem of glacial downloads.

 

ah, I'm glad you mentioned it before I got started! haha! Now that I've figured out how to manually download the various updates using windowsupdatesdownloader (also available here at MG I think), I still don't know how you actually install an update that is sitting in a folder somewhere on your computer? Do you just double-click on it and it installs? Does the Windows Installer have to be turned on in the services? And, of course, I'm very curious why Microsoft hasn't addressed the problem since so many people are troubled by it.

 

Yes you just double click on it. It will then use the standard windows search to check if it is currently missing and needed, and if so it will install.
You need the same services on as if you were using Windows Updates.

 

Thanks Max. That's helpful.

In the meantime I tried something called WSUS offline Update which really zipped through the verification and streaming (?) download of 205 updates, but unfortunately, I don't know what I'm doing there. I had tried earlier in the day to trick Win Update into starting up by asking it to install the Tool for the Removal of Malicious Software and it offered to install IE11 at the same time, so I took that too in the hopes it would force updates. It did, in fact force those updates and they were all listed in the update history, but that was all except for one update from 2010. After WSUS offline went through its download, I no longer had any updates listed in the Windows update history, however, IE11 was still IE11, so I think it just cleared the update history.

 

I just replaced Win 7 Enterprise with Win 7 Ultimate. I left the laptop running overnight searching for updates. It never returned a list of available updates on it's own.

I ran wsus offline update and it immediately found and started downloading updates. After I installed 156 updates via wsus, I searched for updates using Windows Update and got another 70 updates in short order. Note that it was only after updates were installed via wsus that Windows Update produced the list.

I'm going to make an NTLite integrated install media so I don't go through that again.

 

If you check Installed Updates, you'll see them. WSUS doesn't use the same folder for the downloaded updates that Windows Update does so, "Windows Update" wouldn't "see" them. I've used wsus offline update for quite some time but, I run it from CD/DVD so, it takes quite some time for me.

 

Hi mdonah,
Whatever I did worked, so maybe it was WSUS. Everything seems to be installing now, so I've now set Windows Updates to look for updates and allow me to download and install them myself. I hadn't heard of WSUS before so I wasn't sure whether they were safe and whether I should re-install the OS, but once I got the updates working, I hated to try again and get stuck again. At some point I re-ran the repair tool from Microsoft (I think it was this one: Windows6.1-KB947821-v34-x64.msu) and I had Windows Updates turned off to "never", so it threw up two errors and I then turned them on to automatic install. After awhile I tried to turn the computer off and it had the shutdown marked with the little symbol that there were updates to be installed and it proceeded to update 40, which are now listed in Windows Updates History. This makes me wonder what I did that worked. The KB tool mentioned above is around 500,000 kb. Both this one and another one (Windows6.1-KB3138612-x64.msu (around 3000 kb) have the same name. They may have the same name, but one is quite large compared to the other. For each, there is an extensive article at Microsoft:

The bigger file:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/947821 "Fix Windows Update Errors Using the DISM or System Update Readiness Tool"

The smaller one is :
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3138612 "Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: March 2016"

Hope any of this helps someone.

 

It wasn't 100% smooth for me.

I always select automatic restart and recall in wsus because I know some updates are prerequisites. Windows 7 threw up several "Restart Windows to finish installing updates" during the process. I did so and wsus picked up where it left off.

Later updates produced some errors and i had to run Windows Update Fixit 3 times. But, my Windows 7 is fully patched now.

Windows Updates Downloader was mentioned. It is still available here at MG's but, the project was abandoned and the ULz files are outdated. For something like that, Portable Update is available here at MG's as well and the updates list it produces is kept current.

I use Portable Update to produce NTLited Windows installation media with Windows Updates integrated into them. I don't have to wait for Windows Update to search for, download and install Security Updates if I need to re-install the OS. They're automatically installed during Setup.

 

Thanks mdonah. I did find the following when looking up info about a Windows updates on the Microsoft update website. It said "... via Microsoft Update (MU) and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)" so I guess that answers my question about who WSUS is. I think what happened in my case is that Windows Update started working. Otherwise, if you are correct about them not listing the updates, then I don't think the updates would be listed in my update history. What was different this time was that when I rebooted, before the Windows Welcome screen completed its loading, I got file names in brackets (one at a time, loading) which I've never gotten before. Normally, I get wait for configuration and 35%, but not the names of the files.

I'm afraid I'm still in the dark about how to make the thing work.

 

Thought I'd give WSUS a go after my Win 7 VM failed again this month to create a list of updates for me to install. It downloaded 191 updates, installed the few that the system was missing and WU then went on to find more, just as mdonah said earlier. So until MS fix whatever is causing these Win 7 update issues WSUS seems a useful workaround. I guess I can delete the 191 now - if I can find them

BTW, WU Update History does show the updates installed by WSUS.

 

I also did another check for updates using Portable Update from MG's running it as Administrator because I wanted to do an NTLited Win 7 with the Updates integrated into the installation media. It found a few more updates to install.

As far as the updates location, C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download.

 

Since patch Tuesday is a week in the past, Windows updates will not work fine.

I got a WindowsSecrets newsletter this morning and found it interesting that Fred Langa left one of his Win 7 computers on looking for updates for 24 hours and it didn't get anything! He is a guy that knows how to tweak and has his computer clean and tuned up. If he can't get a list of updates in 24 hours, I know it is not us; it is MS with the problem.

Fred Langa has been writing for now out of print Windows magazine and published a newsletter for years, the Langa List. He is now one of the writers for WindowsSecrets.

I've been subscribing to whatever he's written since the Windows 95 days.

 

From the original post... Had the same problem and found that there is a folder that Windows uses to store updates, kind of like a temp folder that never gets emptied. Look for C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Downloads. In my case this folder had 55,000+ files over 1.4GBof space. All that you lose if you delete these files is the ability to go back and remove an update that you might not want, but some of these may have been corrupted which will cause the current download issue. I understand that these files are not to remain for more that 10 days but should be automatically removed by some sync between your files and the Microsoft record of updates to your computer, but I don't see this happening on mine and haven't investigated further. So I deleted the contents, restarted the computer, went to windows update and things worked, it still took a few minutes to start the download so be patient.

There is a "correct way" to delete the folder requiring that you stop the Windows Update Service first. (although I got an error message and had to manually delete the contents without issue). Go to your run box and type cmd, hold down both SHIFT+CONTROL when you hit the ENTER key, this will take you into the command line in administrator mode. Type

net stop wuauserv -this stops the Windows Update Service

C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\ -this is the path to your SoftwreDistribution Download folder

net start wuauserv -this starts the Windows Update Service

As soon as the service starts again, some folders will be re-created, this is OK.

Regarding a follow on question, the easiest way to manage an upgrade from Win7 to 10 and not be bothered with Win 10 upgrades until you want them is to use the GWX control panel, it lets you disable the Win 10 update notifications and can even remove the upgrade icon from your desktop. Get it here: http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/08/using-gwx-stopper-to-permanently-remove.html

 

I also have to agree with the comments on Windows 10, I think its the best thing Microsoft has ever done. I had an "older" Win7 laptop running real slow and the CPU was always at 100% (due to the windows update service in constant calling mode). It was a time consuming effort to delete old files, uninstall anything I couldn't reinstall, search for virus with multiple programs to insure it was clean... but well worth the effort. Win 10 runs fast, smooth and the cpu is at 3% or less in idle.

 

If you are going to suggest download sites when posting here you should provide links to MG downloads where possible.

 

MG?

 

MajorGeeks

 

Of course, you can also find the GWX control panel here at Major Geeks: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/gwx_control_panel.html

 

keni254, I've had 2 months of horrible wait times trying to install updates. My
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download (mine doesn't have an s on the end) folder is less than 83MB so clearly my slowness is not the result of a huge amount in that folder.

 

A number of other things come to mind.
1. Microsoft has issued two patches aimed at this problem for Win7, you might try downloading them and applying them manually on the chance they haven't updated before.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3102810
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3138612

2. When researching this myself I found many users who recommended setting your Windows Update to automatic, then forget about it, let it do its thing, kind of like a watched pot never boils. Don't stress yourself, it may take a couple of days but when you get a notice that updates are available you get a notice.

3. My updates are installed using a third party installer. I tried and bought Advanced System Care starting with 6 and now have version 9. One of its features is a vulnerability check during which in identifies Microsoft updates and installs them. I don't believe that this relies on the Windows Update installer to identify, download and install, but when I shut down the computer i get the expected "Windows is installing updates..." I've never had a delay when it identifies needed updates. This and its companion products are very cool products and worth the price (frequently discounted), but the free version offers the vulnerability fix.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/advanced_systemcare_9.html

4. Major Geeks has some batch installers you might try, such as BatchPatch (I've not used it so am not recommending it but its there) but it advertises itself as giving you control over updating by working around the MS Server
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/batchpatch.html

Its important to completely update Win7 before doing a Win10 update because Win10 does retain some old Win7 components, I believe that the backup and recovery module is the same.