Microsoft intentionally sabotaging Windows 7, by making Windows Update unbearable??

[Rhonda the Sly]

Can you remind me what exactly happened to WLM in Windows 7?

Windows Live Mail 2012 requires an update to keep using it because of changes made to the Outlook.com backend infrastructure. The update has been out for a bit now but it seems to be causing issues for some.

 

[Eno Safirey]

I am struggling with a recent fresh install of W7 on a C2D with 4GB of ram. From reading the posts above the attitude seems to be that Microsoft is doing nothing wrong- it must be my outdated, under powered, memory deficient device, or a crummy internet connection or lack of patience.

What I want to know is if there is an alternative option? I know there are patching programs out there that you can use instead of Microsoft, but are they safe?

 

[JackMDS]

http://www.howtogeek.com/200211/6-popular-operating-systems-offering-encryption-by-default/

 

[bononos]

How is it a "myth?" I've used windows update on hundreds of fresh installed Windows 7 machines, the last one I did this on was *yesterday*. Checked and found the updates within a reasonable timeframe.

Nobody is saying that Windows Update works perfectly 100% of the time, but there are literally *thousands* of reasons why Windows Update might hang on any given system. It can't all be lumped together as one problem because it's simply not, and it definitely isn't some grand conspiracy by Microsoft to get people to upgrade.

The myth I'm talking about is the continuous insistence that there must be something wrong with the pc or its just an intermittent problem with the microsoft update servers which could be cleared up by trying to update again later. Theres nothing wrong with the pc's I look after while they were on win7 except that the update keeps failing. They are not lagging hardware wise because of slow cpus or insufficient memory, all of them have ssd's or fast harddrives for the windows partition, none of them have malware or have crap software/pup/adware and I don't have trouble with broadband speed.

According to the link I posted earlier - it says that the update process will tend to clog up as more updates are added.

Win10 may have inherited the same issue but Microsoft may have elected to reduce the problem by regularly running all-in updates like the recent 1511 which also clear out the update history and backup files.

 

[Mushkins]

The myth I'm talking about is the continuous insistence that there must be something wrong with the pc or its just an intermittent problem with the microsoft update servers which could be cleared up by trying to update again later.

Which is not a myth at all, it's basic troubleshooting. If millions of PCs update just fine but yours has an issue, evidence points to the device itself being at fault.

Theres nothing wrong with the pc's I look after while they were on win7 except that the update keeps failing. They are not lagging hardware wise because of slow cpus or insufficient memory, all of them have ssd's or fast harddrives for the windows partition, none of them have malware or have crap software/pup/adware and I don't have trouble with broadband speed.

Yes, there's nothing wrong with them except that thing that's wrong with them that you just pointed out. Perhaps you're installing some common software that's at fault, or there's a local network issue that's the cause. Troubleshoot the issue at hand instead of declaring that the service is fundamentally broken for the entire world over and there's some grand conspiracy at work.

According to the link I posted earlier - it says that the update process will tend to clog up as more updates are added.

Win10 may have inherited the same issue but Microsoft may have elected to reduce the problem by regularly running all-in updates like the recent 1511 which also clear out the update history and backup files.

Excuse me if I don't take "xpwasmyidea.blogspot.my" as a credible source. Just skimming his blog posts he's literally just ranting about all sorts of nonsense. Maybe post a TechNet article describing the issue if you want to give your claim some weight?

 

[postmortemIA]

Win 10 does not have this problem because all updates are cumulative.

 

[Mem]

I can't believe this thread is still going.

Remember you have a choice and nobody is forcing to use any OS, end of the day I don't believe Microsoft are making anybody use their OS, yes I still use good old Linux.

 

[Ketchup]

Win 10 does not have this problem because all updates are cumulative.

Yep. If you download the latest ISO, to a flash drive, for example, when doing a fresh Windows install, Windows updates should never be a problem again. It even checks for updates prior to the install, if you are online.

I have never run into the problem VL has mentioned on a system without other problems, but I am far from being a daily OS installer.

 

[jhansman]

Its probably The microsoft corporation targeting you specifically since my updates seem to work without issue. This is the most likely thing, not that there are problems with your specific install or hardware. Its the Microsoft Corporation involved in a conspiracy to get YOU to upgrade to win 10. Through sorcery they have determined that its very important for then to have you on windows 10 so they can spy on your important works. Good luck, MS could be a powerful enemy. I hear tin foil prevents their "signals" from getting you. Maybe make a little hat for the pc...

This. Oh, and global warming? Microsoft.

 

[ratjacket]

I believe this is true it happened with windows XP and now its happening with windows 7.

I have had the same issue with two laptops one in December and one this week

I use an old version of seven it updates the updater and I can get SP1 after that it just hangs on checking for updates

I think letting go into automatic mode sometimes fixes it but that can take a day to get it to check and install

I cant remember what I did in December but I know it makes reformatting take a day longer now by the time I fix it :/

For the disbelievers try it, reformat, install windows 7 and run the automatic updates and enjoy the first few lot of updates to the updater and sp1, then cry as you wait for hours after sp1.

I think manually upgrading IE did help in December however it didn't this time. Also in December I got it to work by automatically searching for updates however after I found it and thought it was fixed I restarted and run updates manually only to have it broken again

I have set it to automatic while i'm at work and stopped the system from suspending lets see if that helps my bet is it wont and I will dick around for a couple of hours deleting files and running fix it tools.

Conspiracy you know it, once bitten twice shy. Happened to XP and now it has Happened to 7

 

[Ketchup]

I did a couple installs today, and found that by running the 'check for updates', then doing a shutdown right when there is an install updates icon inside the Shut Down button, caused Windows to install 3 updates, but made 100+ updates ready for install almost immediately after booting the machine back up. Might want to give it a shot.

Now this is totally a guess, but I do have an idea as to what is happening here. Since updates have to come from Microsoft servers, it makes sense to me that Microsoft is giving priority to servers providing Windows 10 updates. It's the latest OS, and they want to make it look as good as possible.

I don't think there is anything inherently evil about it. I think it is just MS making their latest products to look as desirable as possible.

 

[Charlie98]

I just fresh installed W7 on my main desktop... it took almost an hour to get the first batch of updates (that is to say just find the updates available,) then another 30 minutes or so for the second batch. Then I install Office... and wait another 30 minutes for those updates to appear, etc. The wait time does get shorter and shorter, but that first few sets of updates... jeeez.

 

[Ranulf]

I've found with win8 (and now 7 more often) especially on lower end machines that you need to baby-sit the updates and install only a few at a time, usually things related to each other to make it go faster. That or use WSUS Offline update, which won't get everything you need anyway.

The 2GB argument doesn't hold for me simply because I've seen systems with 4gb and an ssds get bogged down. A laptop with a 1037 Celeron dualcore took 3 hours of semi-babysitting to update to 8.1 from an almost year old win8 install last year.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I believe this is true it happened with windows XP and now its happening with windows 7.

I have had the same issue with two laptops one in December and one this week

I use an old version of seven it updates the updater and I can get SP1 after that it just hangs on checking for updates

I think letting go into automatic mode sometimes fixes it but that can take a day to get it to check and install

I cant remember what I did in December but I know it makes reformatting take a day longer now by the time I fix it :/

For the disbelievers try it, reformat, install windows 7 and run the automatic updates and enjoy the first few lot of updates to the updater and sp1, then cry as you wait for hours after sp1.

I think manually upgrading IE did help in December however it didn't this time. Also in December I got it to work by automatically searching for updates however after I found it and thought it was fixed I restarted and run updates manually only to have it broken again

I have set it to automatic while i'm at work and stopped the system from suspending lets see if that helps my bet is it wont and I will dick around for a couple of hours deleting files and running fix it tools.

Conspiracy you know it, once bitten twice shy. Happened to XP and now it has Happened to 7

Why are you loading Win7 pre SP1 to start with?

 

[Ketchup]

Why are you loading Win7 pre SP1 to start with?

I've got one better than that, SparkyJJO. Did a Vista install last week pre-SP-anything. Just don't use it enough to slipstream the service packs.

 

[LPCTech]

Im a PC repair tech. I install and upgrade win 7 all the time. Hundreds of times. Every day. If you are having upgrade problems you have at least one of: corrupted software, a corrupt installation, bad network connection, malware, hardware issues.

There is not a conspiracy to make win 7 updates slow.

Again, I update win 7 multiple times per day on many makes and models of PC. If a problem occurs, its not microsoft conspiring to get that pc to win 10. Its one of the issues I listed.

Logic is hard for some people and those people take their computers to me for fixing after they think the (NSA,CIA, FBI) are spying on them, that "hackers are in the pc", that the internet is gone(IE icon deleted), that need help changing their homepage and desktop background. These are the people who think there is a conspiracy.

 

[Elixer]

Logic is hard for some people and those people take their computers to me for fixing after they think the (NSA,CIA, FBI) are spying on them, that "hackers are in the pc", that the internet is gone(IE icon deleted), that need help changing their homepage and desktop background. These are the people who think there is a conspiracy.

And this is why updates are forced pushed these days for win 10.
There are just too many people out there that don't get it, see some "news" about something, then they think they got that.
Kinda like a hypotechnochondriac

 

[VirtualLarry]

Im a PC repair tech. I install and upgrade win 7 all the time. Hundreds of times. Every day. If you are having upgrade problems you have at least one of: corrupted software, a corrupt installation, bad network connection, malware, hardware issues.

That's simply not true. Windows update, on fully-functional modern hardware (Haswell Celeron with 16GB RAM), with an internet connection of at least 50Mbit/sec, using a DVD burned and verified OK, from an ISO of Win7 HP 64-bit SP1-U, downloaded from Digital River (before they were pulled), still takes OVER TWO HOURS, during the first Windows Update session, before it presents the list of updates available. This is fact.

My Skylake G4400 (stock clock 3.3Ghz, overclocked to 4.455Ghz effortless, verified stable by BOINC/DC projects), with 8GB of DDR4-2520 (OCed DDR4-2400), with a PCI-E 3.0 x4 AHCI M.2 128GB SSD, took slightly less time. Maybe over an hour.

Edit: Oh, and one core is pinned 100% pretty much the whole time WU is searching for Updates. The OCed G4400 having much better ST performance (nearly double the Haswell Celeron in the example), explains why it took half the time.

Edit: That red Brix mini-PC with the AMD Richland mobile quad-core CPU took nearly three hours. When you consider that the ST performance of a 2-ish Ghz Richland is probably half to 3/4 that of a Haswell Celeron, then it all starts to make sense. It's simply the sheer amount of processing that WU does, initially. It may be hashing all of the files on the HDD/SSD, before it sends them to the remote server to get the list of applicable updates.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Sorry you're having trouble with your specific system, but it doesn't mean you're being "sabotaged." It means you just have friggin bad luck.

I reloaded Win7 not that long ago on older hardware than yours, no issue. It took it probably 10-15 min to dig up the long list of updates it needed, but whatever.

This isn't to say I haven't seen long wait times, but usually it is on really old or limited hardware. I've also seen long wait times on XP, Vista, 7, and 8, all during their main support eras. It has sometimes been a problem with Windows update in general, not just now but also historically.

Nothing new. Move along.

 

[Charlie98]

Sorry you're having trouble with your specific system, but it doesn't mean you're being "sabotaged." It means you just have friggin bad luck.

I reloaded Win7 not that long ago on older hardware than yours, no issue. It took it probably 10-15 min to dig up the long list of updates it needed, but whatever.

This isn't to say I haven't seen long wait times, but usually it is on really old or limited hardware. I've also seen long wait times on XP, Vista, 7, and 8, all during their main support eras. It has sometimes been a problem with Windows update in general, not just now but also historically.

Nothing new. Move along.

There is more than one instance of it noted above, including mine... so you are correct in that this is 'nothing new.' Why it's doing it? As I said, I don't think MS is purposely sabotaging it, but I think they are not supporting it as they might have been previously. I'm not a tinfoil hat person, but there IS something going on.

 

[postmortemIA]

As others and me have said, the issue is more observable on PCs with limited RAM and slower CPUs. I get the problem on my old laptop on every Patch Tuesday.

 

[Mem]

I don't think MS is purposely sabotaging it, but I think they are not supporting it as they might have been previously. I'm not a tinfoil hat person, but there IS something going on.

You are half right, Win7 mainstream support has already ended, it's on extended support until RIP in Jan 2020.

As to WU that varies day to day regardless of what OS you are on, servers can be busier some days then others(I've had slow days on 7, 8, 8.1, 10 with regards to WU over the years), other things out of your control like ISP and quality of their service on the day of the WU or downloads you are doing.

I'll say regardless of above you can't blame Microsoft from shifting their priorities to their later operating systems ie 8.1/10.

Win7 has been around since 2009 and has had more then enough support and attention by Microsoft.
Every Windows OS support is phased out sooner or later, some slower then others.

Also your choice to stay on an older OS whatever your valid reasons are.
Side note for OS updates: I do find Linux to be excellent in that regards, can't remember last time I waited or had speed issues with Linux updates.

 

[LPCTech]

That's simply not true. Windows update, on fully-functional modern hardware (Haswell Celeron with 16GB RAM), with an internet connection of at least 50Mbit/sec, using a DVD burned and verified OK, from an ISO of Win7 HP 64-bit SP1-U, downloaded from Digital River (before they were pulled), still takes OVER TWO HOURS, during the first Windows Update session, before it presents the list of updates available. This is fact.

My Skylake G4400 (stock clock 3.3Ghz, overclocked to 4.455Ghz effortless, verified stable by BOINC/DC projects), with 8GB of DDR4-2520 (OCed DDR4-2400), with a PCI-E 3.0 x4 AHCI M.2 128GB SSD, took slightly less time. Maybe over an hour.

Edit: Oh, and one core is pinned 100% pretty much the whole time WU is searching for Updates. The OCed G4400 having much better ST performance (nearly double the Haswell Celeron in the example), explains why it took half the time.

Edit: That red Brix mini-PC with the AMD Richland mobile quad-core CPU took nearly three hours. When you consider that the ST performance of a 2-ish Ghz Richland is probably half to 3/4 that of a Haswell Celeron, then it all starts to make sense. It's simply the sheer amount of processing that WU does, initially. It may be hashing all of the files on the HDD/SSD, before it sends them to the remote server to get the list of applicable updates.

The very first updates to a new system take longer than normal.

But dude. I do, do this all day long. I work on 10-40 PCs a day, not all of them need an update and not all are even win 7. But I have wide ranging experience seeing windows updates occurring. I watch windows 7 update no less than lets say..3 times a day. No less. And this is usually AFTER the person has called for some kind of problem possibly malware, and I have cleaned the pc and now am updating java and flash and reader etc. Then I check for updates. And these are old people who dont do their updates. So there are a few. And Im connected to them remotely. Online. If Im connected for a TOTAL of more than 2 hours my employer doesnt like that. So I can malware clean and windows update most PCs in less than 2 hours TOTAL.

if not...there is some kind of problem I cannot address.

But what is more likely?
That microsoft is engaged in what would be a scandalous conspiracy to make win updates for win 7 slow.

Or that the problem is somehow local to you?

Especially considering that people with lots of experience with windows 7 updates are not also having the problem you are.

Im not some windows lover. I dont really like win 10. The PC im on now is win 7 and I prefer android mostly lol.

But maybe you should have a person who you consider more knowledgeable than yourself take a look at your home set up and each pc.

Also this pc im on, is:
i3 4330 3.5Ghz
16BG ram
240GB ssd
Sapphire 7870 2GB
gigabyte mobo
win 7 pro 64
It was built by me in December of 2013

My updates happen quickly and without issue.

 

[Ketchup]

LPCTech, you are talking about running Windows Update on computers in general. I, and I will let others personally confirm this if they like, am talking about a fresh install of Windows 7 with SP1. After installing the Windows Update update, it can be several hours before Windows update finds and starts installing the batch of 100+ updates.

 

[Magic Carpet]

LPCTech, you are talking about running Windows Update on computers in general. I, and I will let others personally confirm this if they like, am talking about a fresh install of Windows 7 with SP1. After installing the Windows Update update, it can be several hours before Windows update finds and starts installing the batch of 100+ updates.

Yes, it can take a long time for a freshly installed Win7 SP1 to find and install updates (200+). I didn't time it exactly, but it was more than 1 hour, for sure. The last time I did it.