Windows Update for Windows 7 - completely broken

Dieselboy · October 10, 2016, 11:21:28 PM

I've been trying to do a fresh install of Windows 7 for over a week and Windows update is broken. I have "Windows 7 Professional" CD's here that we have used before. They're not brand new (today), they were bought in the beginning of 2014. I've also gone to the Microsoft site to download the ISO, based on the Windows product key. We have a bunch of Windows 7 keys as we bought the installation media to upgrade our laptops to support Active Directory.
Both the DVD I have here AND the ISO downloaded from Microsoft are Windows 7 Pro, SP1 and Windows update is broke.

The OS install goes fine, then next step is to launch windows update and get the system updated. We see "Checking for updates.." and nothing ever happens after that. I've left this running for days but there's never any change. I've gone through a bunch of tutorials to try and fix this symptom but the difference is that this symptom is there out of the box and has not broken over time.

At one point, IE browser was launched to try and download an update for Windows Update. However this was broken too, it said the page could not be displayed because the browser was too old. It's IE8. So the fix there was to install Google Chrome, so that we could download the update file, but it didn't fix windows update.

I've tried on 2 separate VMware systems and 1 x KVM/Red Hat / Ovirt - all with the same issue.

Seems like Microsoft have changed something their end, which has broken the initial installation? So far wasted a few days on this one.

Need to update my resume to say "Has trouble installing Windows 7 from DVD".

SimonV · October 11, 2016, 02:49:10 AM

I have noticed similar behaviour in the past -checking for updates endlessly- and sometimes it did take days. I think I had to resort to one of those third-party updaters for one system.

SimonV · October 11, 2016, 04:08:41 AM

A colleague of mine is just telling me she bought a new desktop this weekend and it's not getting updates either.

Could it be that Microsoft fucked up (again)? http://www.computerworld.com/article/3129257/windows-pcs/taking-a-break-from-windows-update.html

Check this link:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-update/why-are-windows-updates-on-fresh-installation-win7/9943ca1e-e421-4703-b679-70433471976b?auth=1

Dieselboy · October 11, 2016, 07:56:26 AM

Yes - apparently windows updates have been ruined for the past few months. I posted on a microsoft forum as well and someone posted a link although havent got a chance to look at it yet. I ended up doing a remote support with microsoft and got them to take a look. After 3 hours of me constantly saying to them on the chat, things like
"it's broke"
"Seems like a server side issue"
"I've tried that but more than happy to do that again

"
"Why have microsoft done this to us?"

She eventually fixed it. I left the system running 250 updates at about 3pm. it's almost 9pm and it's almost done installing them. Somethings got the CPU at 100% and there's an alert on the screen saying there's no RAM left as well. So somethings not right.

The tech did keep telling me I could upgrade to windows 10. I said "noooooooooooooo". Anyway I think I tried upgrading a windows 7 VM to windows 10 last year and it doesn't allow it.

Simon that's my post haha

SimonV · October 11, 2016, 07:58:33 AM

Quote from: Dieselboy on October 11, 2016, 07:56:26 AM
Simon that's my post haha

Yes, I had a strong sense of déja-vu when I ended up on that thread

deanwebb · October 11, 2016, 09:36:35 AM

That explains why my Windows Update service has been going berserk on my home laptop. I just keep stopping the service and go on.

ChestHair · October 11, 2016, 03:35:04 PM

I've seen this with a few clients lately. It used to be that for me, if I left it overnight, all 200+ updates would eventually install. However, it seems to freeze at checking for updates infinitely. My workaround was to restart the machine after an hour and it would install "some" of the updates. Then rinse/repeat a few times and all was good.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

SimonV · October 20, 2016, 08:08:39 AM

I have one of these at home for the moment and it hasn't made *any* progress in 48 hours. Do you remember what they did to resolve it?

deanwebb · October 20, 2016, 09:42:15 AM

My friend went here https://www.raymond.cc/blog/offline-windows-update/view-all/ and used the offline updater and said it worked OK for him.

deanwebb · October 20, 2016, 07:23:56 PM

Follow-up: I'm using WSUS offline updater now... downloaded a LOT of updates, first since early September... be sure to run installer after updater... installer is in the client directory. http://www.wsusoffline.net/docs/

SimonV · October 21, 2016, 02:06:12 AM

I used the Autopatcher yesterday, worked like a charm. Actually it worked much better than the native updater, you know, when it still worked. Unbelievable how MS can get away with this. Think I'll be buying a Macbook or Linux laptop next...

deanwebb · October 21, 2016, 09:04:17 AM

It's taking more than one round for me to get everything patched up... but I need Windows because, um... hang on... trying to think of why I need Windows, other than to play my favorite game, Victoria II, which was released in 2010 and no foreseeable plans for Paradox to release a new version... but I do love it, I do...

Dieselboy · October 21, 2016, 10:37:59 PM

The remote support person did all sorts of downloading patches and running scripts. They left me a LONG instruction list and I was meaning to do this to my machines that need it but ran out of time. I'm away at the moment and will try out your successes when I return to work next week. Got to be a million times better than the long instruction list of 3 hours + work that the remote support person done.

Dieselboy · October 28, 2016, 06:21:55 AM

I've not had any windows upbreaks issues this week at all. I've been able to update all the win7 VMs the normal way.

deanwebb · October 28, 2016, 08:40:53 AM

I have the one update it hangs on, and I haven't been bothered yet to troubleshoot it. I'm in a game as Prussia and I just conquered Bohemia from the Austrian Empire. Sardinia-Piedmont declaring war on Austria to get Lombardy helped out a lot.