How broken is windows update for W7 users?

Elevon · 14 Aug 2016 at 17:57

njj1046 said:
Windows Update is now completely broken for me.

During the Win 10 promotion, I didn't get notifications to tell me if there were any updates available; I had to run Windows Update manually to check if there were updates. When there were updates, they downloaded and installed fine.

After the promotion ended, I started to get notifications that updates were available again. Unfortunately, if I tell it to download any updates now, Windows Update just gets stuck and sits there telling me "downloading 0kb 0%".

Also, I have a 'Svchost.exe (netsvcs)' service running which takes approx 12% of my CPU usage for the entire time Windows is running. I have had to completely disable Windows Update to get my CPU usage back to normal.

Easiest way was using Microsoft Media creation tool, with that you can make ISO, WIN10 on USB , clean install or upgrade etc...

Get it here, https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10 .

jpaul · 14 Aug 2016 at 22:43

njj1046 , have a look at askwoodysite if you were not already, for win 7 issues.

Personally I updated to June 2016 with the win7 rollup patch kb3125574 and have now turned off the updates , until situation is clearer.
For all the folks (like myself) who were thinking they will have a happy life with win7 compared to win 10, maybe the nightmare is just beginning.

need to start a new (black)humorous version of this thread :
(overclockers could give a monthly prize for best voted response ?)
How broken is windows update for w7 users - as broken as the UK economy after the full ramifications of brexit are felt ?

njj1046 · 17 Aug 2016 at 13:33

Elevon said:
Easiest way was using Microsoft Media creation tool, with that you can make ISO, WIN10 on USB , clean install or upgrade etc...

Get it here, https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10 .

Thanks, but If I wanted Win 10, I'd already be using Win 10.

jpaul said:
njj1046 , have a look at askwoodysite if you were not already, for win 7 issues.

Personally I updated to June 2016 with the win7 rollup patch kb3125574 and have now turned off the updates , until situation is clearer.
For all the folks (like myself) who were thinking they will have a happy life with win7 compared to win 10, maybe the nightmare is just beginning.

I'll look into that, cheers. I'll try the roll up patch first though, see if that helps at all

C64 · 18 Aug 2016 at 13:44

It's normal and there is no actual fix just have to leave it running and pray.
Only thing that might be worth trying I'd say is disabling stopping the updates service and process then enabling again.

AWPC · 21 Aug 2016 at 20:39

Now the Win 10 nagware has gone away it seems to have almost fixed itself :rolleyes:

Just had to reinstall and after about 10 mins it produced 250+ updates. I only needed 238 so that was 1.1GB & took 2 hours to download then install.

Columbo · 27 Aug 2016 at 23:30

Well I've given up trying to update my old laptop now.
Wiped it on Thursday to install an SSD and left it to update for 2 full days and it still didnt pick up a single update, have tried a few of the tip mentioned in here today and still no luck so have installed Ubuntu instead.

Took about 10 minutes total to install, a further 5 minutes to update and its up an running. Has made my old Core 2 laptop run and feel like a new machine to be honest, wish I'd done it a couple of days ago.

Kronos · 28 Aug 2016 at 11:48

I too gave up and went with Windows 10.

Shoza · 28 Aug 2016 at 11:54

There is a 5 min fix for windows update not working on windows 7 - I reinstalled last week, Googled the problem and fixed straight away with 290 critical updates!!

Kronos · 28 Aug 2016 at 11:57

Shoza said:
There is a 5 min fix for windows update not working on windows 7 - I reinstalled last week, Googled the problem and fixed straight away with 290 critical updates!!

Good for you as I was Googling and trying out every so called solution I could find with no success. So can you link to this solution you found I might have missed it and it would be handy if I need to reinstall windows 7 on my wifes PC?

Columbo · 28 Aug 2016 at 13:20

Shoza said:
There is a 5 min fix for windows update not working on windows 7 - I reinstalled last week, Googled the problem and fixed straight away with 290 critical updates!!

Please enlighten us, I tried 7 different options none worked.

Deleted member 77746 · 28 Aug 2016 at 13:40

Why they didn't just bring a service pack out is beyond me. I'm guessing they wanted the whole world to move to W10 so break the updates and people will move naturally. On the other hand it may just make people move to something else.

KIA · 28 Aug 2016 at 17:06

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=29764300&postcount=32

Other solutions do exist. Most will fail if you do not follow the instructions word for word.

Kronos · 28 Aug 2016 at 17:58

KIA said:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=29764300&postcount=32

Other solutions do exist. Most will fail if you do not follow the instructions word for word.

That did not work for me, I found that possible solution earlier in the week.

jpaul · 28 Aug 2016 at 23:06

I still think you need to add the Win7 “SP2” update KB 3125574 to the list Kia gave, makes it even easier,

when you say 'it did not work' - it failed to find subsequent updates ? - what went wrong ?

[if you had not see the amazon review of folks updating to win 95
eg

I've upgraded to Windows95 from Windows 10. I am honestly not sure how they are still selling the "10" while "95" is already out there. I am sure a lot of people will be disappointed to find out their new computer shipped with a version that's already outdated.

Everything works much better than in Windows 10. I use Excel 2003 and Word 6 a lot and you can expect *huge* performance improvements - those things fly! I guess my hardware, with a Intel i7 4770k and 16Gb of RAM was not up to the task with Windows 10. Windows 95 is much more optimized and expect things to run *a lot* faster.

The only complaint I have is it does not ship with Chrome, and you are forced to run some new browser called Netscape Navigator. It looks kind of ascetic but on the up side - it is *so* much faster than anything in Windows 10 and it does not run those annoying flash ads or autoplay videos.

Overall a very decent upgrade over the previous version (10). That's the version we've been waiting for ever since XP!
I upgraded to Windows 95 from Windows 8. Before in Windows 8 I had to go to the ginormous start screen to launch a program on the desktop, but now in Windows 95, there is a start menu that makes launching programs much easier. a lot of the default programs that came with Windows 8 are in Windows 95 like calculator, paint, notepad etc. A notable and cool in Windows 95 is the briefcase, I can stick folders in it and bring the file up in another computer. Minesweeper is a great game in Windows 95 to try. Unlike Windows 8, MS-DOS games are fully compatible, so no need for DOS Box. Additionally, Windows 95 uses significantly less resources like hard disk space, so my hard drive went from 475gb out of 500gb with Win8, to 499gb out of 500gb with Win95. Some other useful features in Windows 95 are disk defrag for defragging your drive, and Scan Disk for checking for disk errors. The thing I love most with Windows 95 is the simplicity, there is no other interface, and not a bucket load of apps preinstalled. Windows 95 is overall a great OS and I highly recommend it.

]

Kronos · 29 Aug 2016 at 09:35

Not sure I see the relevance of your link. What I do know that something that used to take two hours tops, to install and upgrade Windows 7, now takes days or not at all. And I can only surmise that this is something Microsoft has done in their fanatical push to get us all to move to Windows 10. This problem is all over the net yet what you will struggle to find is any real comment from Microsoft, which in itself speak volumes.

jpaul · 29 Aug 2016 at 10:03

eh - The KB link discusses the ms windows 7 roll-up patch release aka sp2 - in one shot it gives you ~200 patches ( potentially including further windows update patches too ) why make life difficult ?

Kronos · 29 Aug 2016 at 10:08

Problem I had was I could not even install this Convenience rollup update for Windows 7 SP1, As for your question "why make life difficult ?" lost me again there.

Steampunk · 29 Aug 2016 at 10:25

I did all that and never got one particular machine fixed. It's either a problem at the MS servers, or a problem with one of the many Windows Updates versions that MS were messing with every week to try and get people to go to Windows 10. There is no guaranteed fix for everyone.

PDW · 29 Aug 2016 at 10:35

When all else failed I used WSUS Offline Update to download and install Windows 7 updates from here:

http://download.wsusoffline.net/

None of the other tips/tricks/suggestions I found online worked.

It has lots of options on how to use it for updating other clients but I used it simply to update a clean install of Win 7.

Once you have downloaded the updates (using UpdateGenerator.exe) you need to run the UpdateInstaller.exe (found in the 'client' sub-folder).

The instructions aren't too bad but not native English. During the installation process (of a clean W7 install) it installs some updates and then needs to be rebooted several times and you have to run the installer again, I think the phrase used in the DOS box to tell you this was 'recall update afterwards' !

There is a forum if you want to browse or need help.
It worked for me and now Windows Update works fine by itself

Kronos · 29 Aug 2016 at 10:42

WSUS Offline Update did not work for me this time though it has in the past. I do agree that once you manage to update Windows 7 to current levels then the Update process works fine. But the difficulty is getting it there in the first place now.