New
#1
Hi, @Steffan:
If you check over at our sister forum, sevenforums.com (and practically every other computer support forum), you'll see that this has been a terrible problem for Win7 users for many months.
There have been serious issues with the Win7 Windows Update client.
There are a gazillion threads about it "next door" and a handful of KBs have been suggested, but, FINALLY, TMAVLSS, the 3 patches that seem to fix this for a new Win7 install are:
3125574
3020369
3172605
So, first, download and save the standalone installers for those 3 KBs.
Then, if it's "stuck" in perpetual "checking for updates" or "downloading updates" mode, you'll need to disable WU from services.msc (change to manual and then stop the service) and change the WU settings to "never check for updates" in the WU applet and then reboot. (Some users have also found it necessary to disconnect from the internet, but I did not find that to be the case on my 2 Win7 boxes.)
That should permit those 3 patches to install.
You'll need to reboot again when done.
Then, go back to services.msc and change WU back to Automatic (delayed start) and go back to WU settings and change it to "notify but do not install".
Do a manual update check and see what patches are now available....
Everything should work OK now.
Please let us know if this resolves your issue,
MM
I bought a refurbished laptop through newegg before the free upgrade to W10 expired, it's a Dell Latitude E6420 and had Win 7 Pro. It was purchased specifically to upgrade to W10 while it was still free.
Anyway, before the upgrade I wanted to update Win 7, it was just checking for updates and never moving along. I left it up the rest of the afternoon and all night, the next morning it had near 200 updates waiting to be installed. Seems it was just a matter of leaving it up long enough.
IMO MS is using social engineering by making it hard on any user that isn't upgrading to W10, just my opinion.
Try leaving it up for as long as you can and see what happens.
Microsoft are aware of the problems of doing a clean install of W7 SP1 then checking for (a gazillion) updates. They have issued the 'Convenience rollup update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1' (KB 3125574) to help with this (effectively an SP2 in all but name). It is only available through the Microsoft Update Catalog.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3125574How to get this convenience rollup
Microsoft Update Catalog
To get the package for this update, go to the Microsoft Update Catalog website.
Installing this on a (glacially slow when checking for updates) W7 machine then using Disk Clean-up to clean up windows updates has been a permenant cure on both the W7 machines I've tried it on.