MM's instructions are spot-on and correct. A few months ago I had to update some never used client laptops that had Windows 7 installed on them. I manually downloaded and ran the updates that she mentioned prior to executing Windows update itself, and every single one of them finished without issue.
Problem:
Tried it twice and the result is same.
edit OK, so I ignored this, since it just says stopping but nothng changes, so I restarted it and pulled out the wifi antenna, after I ran the KB3020369 and KB3172605, they both installed in less than a minute!
Then, the computer rebooted, and now I re-set the service to delayed start and I set W.U. to Check but ask whether to download and install, now I am waiting to see if any updates will be found...
Last edited by Steffan; 30 Sep 2016 at 05:29.
Ok, it shows 242 important updates now!Should I now change to download and install automatically, also a the services, should it be without "delayed"?
Ok, so I returned the settings to automatically, it's downloading now, we'll see if it all gets installed successfully...
Last edited by Steffan; 30 Sep 2016 at 05:46. Reason: update
Two of the important updates are unselected for donwload, .NET Framework and this one:
Should I leave it that way?
You got lucky, from what I've seen. I did a clean install of 7 sp1 just to test how Windows update worked, or didn't work. After several reboots and retries, I left mine running on check for updates for 3 days and nada. It would not update, just a continuous checking for updates. It's a known wide spread problem that in most cases requires manual intervention to resolve.
Yes, I had a similar experience doing an OEM factory reset to Win7 SP1 on my laptop.
The key to getting it to check for updates in a prompt fashion was to install KB3125574 (the Convenience Rollup) and then do a Disk Clean-up and tick the Windows Update Clean-up. This last point is important as it removes all obsolete updates (this in itself speeds up the check-for-updates process - there's less to check).
On my machine before installing KB3125574 SYSTEMINFO reported: 267 Hotfix(s) Installed.
After KB3125574 it was: 268 Hotfix(s) Installed.
After Windows Update Clean-up it was: 122 Hotfix(s) Installed.
NB: Windows Update Clean-up requires a restart to complete the process. First it says 'Windows is configuring updates' and then there's a time consuming 'Cleaning up...' screen before the restart is complete.
For me that reduced 'checking for updates' from 'hours' down to 1 minute 20 seconds.
Windows update will do that if those updates need to be installed separately from the rest. Let it do all the others, reboot, and run Windows update again. Odds are this time they will be checked for install the second time around.
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