Windows Update... broken?

Bry89

Yesterday was meant to be the day I'm to get new updates for my system but, something went wrong (and just to mention, I only get Windows Update to check for updates only because of the Win10 upgrade being forced upon us if we stick with Automatic Upates). All I can say is that I see the svchost.exe process under Task Manager where it is eating half the CPU and it may be part of the update process but it's taking much longer than usual to the point I'm losing my patience and took the risk of ending the process. Then, when I go onto Windows Update itself and showed some updates I can install (only four, which is unusual as I get about twenty-odd), nothing seems to be happening when they're being downloaded or even to check if there's more and once again, svchost hogs the system again. Turning on Automatic Updates also generates the same problem.

I do not know what is up but for now, I have turned off updates and just manually check for them but even that doesn't seem to work. Seems like a fault at Microsoft's end even though their site is running fine. I hope I'm not the only one experiencing this because this is getting me really stressed out big time, even when I know I'm in great risk for not updating my system with security updates but at least Malwarebytes Anti-Malware can protect me in the long run.

wingzeroismine

I had to update a couple Win7 systems yesterday and also had a hell of a time, one worked eventually. The other one I skipped them.

8.1 and 10 systems are updating fine.

Bry89

None of the updates I was given weren't even working, and they were just updates for Office 2010. Can I just ask... how long did you have to wait for at least one to work? I tried to see if I can wait half an hour but I was losing all patience. Also, it's good that I'm not the only Win7 user suffering from this.

nikkigreg1974

My windows 7 and windows xp takes for ever to find updates. My one laptop i reinstalled windows 7 and it went all night long looking for updates. Part of me think microsoft is doing this so people will upgrade to windows 10 and also people are using windows xp get mad enough that they will stop using windows xp. But maybe i am wrong. If windows update is broken i hope they fix it soon.

wingzeroismine

There is https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3102810 update, check if its installed or not. I have had luck in the past with svchost eating cpu and ram while seemingly not progressing on checking for updates.

I got up and wandered away for a while so I'm not sure how long it took to complete the scan, probably an hour or so.

Bry89

That's already installed on my system, as I ran the installer and it told me that straight away. Funnily enough, there was one optional update I had been told about which is to do with a problem with MSIs or something. I forgot the KB number and I'm not sure if that would solve anything or something. I don't know.

nikkigreg1974 wrote:

Part of me think microsoft is doing this so people will upgrade to windows 10 and also people are using windows xp get mad enough that they will stop using windows xp. But maybe i am wrong. If windows update is broken i hope they fix it soon.

What made you think that? Support for 7 doesn't end until four years time. If that was the case, I'd be damn angry. Very angry.

garirry

Windows 7's update process is a rotten pile of shit. The way I tried fixing it was to manually first install SP1, then install KB3083710, then KB3102810. For me, it worked, but it still glitched out at the end (though that was probably something else).

Be careful, you have to have a clean Windows 7 installation at your disposal! And it seems that it has to be disconnected from the Internet otherwise it'll update itself and cause the problems again!

thiekus

That's why now I always set automatic updates to manual updates instead of automatic. Got sit down on cafe for about an hour just for waiting update installation process because when I shut down my laptop, Windows rant me to install updates immediately. The worst of all, my laptop out of power :x

I'm also had weird problem after updates on Windows 7 in the past, like sometime will set file copy preparing process into forever, while my another laptop installed with vista sp2 updates never got major problem as Win 7.

Bry89

I believe there's a fault with the update server, but that wouldn't really make sense if updates for 8.1 and 10 were checked, downloaded and installed just fine. I even tried doing these steps and that didn't work. I really hope this doesn't go on for any longer and if it does, am I to worry?

dosbox

There is an offline windows update program that works fine.

Bry89

Oh, interesting. Well I found out about WSUS Offline Update and Portable Update but I think I'd go with the former. For its latest version, dated 18-3-16, I think that would contain updates I already got last month (which was 9th March to be precise). If so, I can check that site periodically for a newer one.

Bry89

Okay, I have downloaded WSUS Offline Update and it had successfully downloaded some updates but, I believe that they're of ones I have had already because I noticed the timestamps on each of them when looking at them in the "client" subfolder where they are from 2010 to last year, and that there was to be so many (over 200 of them actually). One update that had got me baffled was the German version of Internet Explorer. I terminated the update process afterwards because, why install the same update again?

Tried checking for them under Windows Update, and still slow as hell. What else can I do? I wish there were links to each individual update on Microsoft's site so I can download and install them from there, rather than depending on Windows Update if it's going to be a dick to me.

Bry89

Sorry to bump this again but, I am pleased to say that I've finally gotten it to work this time... after waiting over an hour for it to check for updates and then another hour to start the download process. Everything else went fine without a hitch.

The next time it is "Patch Tuesday", I hope this doesn't happen again. I mean it :x

Bry89

I know this is the fourth time I have bumped this but, it seems that Windows Update really has problems now. Why? For this month's batch of updates, none of them were important ones let alone security updates. All I saw were two updates for Office 2010 and this happened last week. Don't tell me Microsoft did this on purpose, to get us to upgrade although, even this showed that there were no major updates for Windows 7 either.

I don't know if other 7 users have had the same problem as me like my initial one but, maybe critical updates will come later this month or the next. I mean, the last bunch of security updates were installed on 11th May and I will be pissed off if there's no more, and that would make no sense as 7's lifetime doesn't end until another four years. I swear to god, if any more issues with this occur again, I am considering ditching this OS for good... and I will have no regrets. This is not on.

calvinb

KB3102810 fixes a lot of Windows 7 WU resource usage problems, but it's still dog slow to search and install updates. Windows 8.1 and 10 update quicker.

Bry89

I've already got that update (since 11th November 2015 to be exact), and earlier on I had tried to make it search for updates again only that this time, I waited TWO FUCKING HOURS until I lost all patience. If this didn't happen before, why now?

EDIT: Because of how angry I am over this, I decided to disable the Windows Update service and to be honest, it's better off that way if things won't change. I know it's not a good idea to disable updates overall but if the update client is going to be a sluggish piece of shit, no matter if that particular update has been installed to "rectify" it, I think it's a must.

timjames474

I hate 10s tracking, but i forced myself to use it because updates would take me all day with a clean install with SP1

epguy7

ampharos wrote:

KB3102810 fixes a lot of Windows 7 WU resource usage problems, but it's still dog slow to search and install updates. Windows 8.1 and 10 update quicker.

The KB3102810 update was ineffective in improving WU search/scan times under Windows 7 SP1 but fixed a memory/RAM leak with svchost.exe when doing WU searches.

Try installing either the latest win32k.sys security update (KB3161664) or the June 2016 update rollup (KB3161608), which includes the newest Windows Update client fix from KB3161647.

flippak

Amazing. The June 2016 update rollup fixed Windows Update in Windows 7 x64.

The fix is "an optimization that addresses long scan time for updates that's reported on some computers", as Microsoft puts it...

Bry89

Just downloaded and installed that update, and I can say things have indeed improved although I have re-enabled Windows Update before I did this. I can say that things have greatly improved even when I'm now given the bunch of important updates that were long overdue, and it only took a couple of minutes to get the job done. While I am more than pleased of this, it makes me wonder what took Microsoft this long to finally rectify the problem. It was around for two months you know...

Fingers crossed this won't happen again in the future.

epguy7

nikkigreg1974 wrote:

My windows 7 and windows xp takes for ever to find updates. My one laptop i reinstalled windows 7 and it went all night long looking for updates. Part of me think microsoft is doing this so people will upgrade to windows 10 and also people are using windows xp get mad enough that they will stop using windows xp. But maybe i am wrong. If windows update is broken i hope they fix it soon.

@nikkigreg1974: the problem NEVER occurred under Windows XP SP3 as I just checked myself on a test PC (a custom built PC with an Intel Pentium D 945 [3.40Ghz] CPU with 2Gb of RAM, 250Gb SATA hard drive, Intel D101GGC board). The Windows Update web site for XP using the Windows Update Agent/Client v7.6.7600.256 displayed a list of 150+ available XP updates in just less than 2 minutes - this was a fresh XP install (yea it was lightning fast).

well Bry89 the Windows Update problem is even worse under Windows Vista SP2 as I tested myself on an HP A6230n PC with pre-installed Vista Home Premium edition. Windows Update on Vista was taking more than 3 to 5 hours still searching for available Vista updates. I ended up using the command "net stop wuauserv" to stop WU from searching for updates since it got nowhere. The latest WU agent/client app on Vista is version 7.6.7600.256.

Since Microsoft did not make an updated WU client fix for Vista, the only to fix the problem on Vista is to install the very latest WIN32K.SYS security update which is KB3161664 to speed up Windows Update searches. The Vista KB3161664 win32k.sys update will temporarily fix the problem from June 14 to July 11. When the problem comes back on July 12 (July patch Tuesday), a newer win32k.sys fix for Vista may be offered then to cure the problem for a few weeks.

But on Win7 SP1 systems (both x86 and x64), the KB3161608 update rollup (which contains v7.6.7601.23453 of the WU agent/client app) is the more permanent fix rather than keeping on installing newer win32k.sys security updates.

Bry89

epguy7 wrote:

well Bry89 the Windows Update problem is even worse under Windows Vista SP2 as I tested myself on an HP A6230n PC with pre-installed Vista Home Premium edition. Windows Update on Vista was taking more than 3 to 5 hours still searching for available Vista updates. I ended up using the command "net stop wuauserv" to stop WU from searching for updates since it got nowhere. The latest WU agent/client app on Vista is version 7.6.7600.256.

Oh yeah, I actually remember that when I once had a Vista VM running. Not only that, the CPU usage always maxed out during it also. Even if a newer version of win32k.sys will be released each time for Vista, would newer versions of it still come when support for Vista ends next year?

epguy7

Bry89 wrote:

Oh yeah, I actually remember that when I once had a Vista VM running. Not only that, the CPU usage always maxed out during it also. Even if a newer version of win32k.sys will be released each time for Vista, would newer versions of it still come when support for Vista ends next year?

maybe. Support for Windows Server 2008 (R0) SP2 (the Server counterpart of Windows Vista) ends on Jan. 2020 instead of Apr. 2017.

There's a recent Microsoft forum thread of the Windows Update problem for Vista (poor Vista users, they'll have a really tough time checking for Vista updates on WU and waiting for many hours - no new WU client patch has been made for Vista SP2 that will resolve that problem)

And also a recent blog on the Askwoody.com site for a possible solution to the slow Vista updates but I'm not too confident on the solutions posted there.

So far, the new Windows Update client app from KB3161608/KB3161647 worked great for my Win7 SP1 PCs (my sanity restored when checking for Win7 updates on WU - takes between 3 to 6 minutes to show a list of available updates)

epguy7

It's nearly mid-August and version 7.6.7601.23453 of the Windows Update client from the KB3161608 and KB3172605 update rollups for Windows 7 SP1 have permanently resolve the very long WU scan problem.

Although KB3161608 & KB3172605 update rollups seem to cause Intel Bluetooth devices not to function properly with outdated Bluetooth drivers, Intel has recently posted new Bluetooth drivers & software that are compatible with the KB3161608 and KB3172605 updates.

See this Intel forum thread on how to install updated Bluetooth drivers under Win7 SP1 while re-installing either the KB3161608 or KB3172605 update if either one was already uninstalled:
https://communities.intel.com/thread/104851