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

[Executioner]

For updates, I only use Autopatcher. It will store updates locally on your drive. If I need to update someone's pc, I simply copy my folder to theirs and run the Autopatcher executable. I have updates disabled, and do it myself once a month.
Another reason I like Autopacher is it will install only the security updates. All the other updates are flagged as recommended and placed in a different folder.

 

[Wheels76]

It's not my primary job responsibility, I'm a programmer, but I format and reinstall windows about twice a month on various pc's. Some with better hardware than others. It wasn't until 6 months or so ago that the windows 7 updates began to take an extremely long time. It happens without fail for me. It turned a lazy format + reinstall + patch, a half day, to over a day. If I forget to update the power settings before leaving for the night and the computer falls asleep, then add another day, because it takes forever for WU to even get a list of what updates the pc needs. I suspect those that don't have this problem really are just savvy about what manual updates need to be added first, and manage to navigate that path in an efficient manner. But it's clear by searching the internet that almost everyone is now having problems with win 7 updates when going from a clean install of win 7 sp1. Today a machine I just installed win 7 pro on basically took 6 hours and I ended up cancelling and looking for other methods. Finally I manually installed kb3138612, restarted, then did a search for updates and it found 229 updates in about 10 mins. None of the fix it tools or roll ups worked. I've now got a thumb drive with a few tools and updates at the ready.

I just find it funny the gurus insistence that MS is not responsible for this when there are hordes of people who used to have no difficulties running windows updates on clean win 7 installs, and all of a sudden right when MS is aggressively pushing their new OS, the old one gets extremely difficult to get patched. But to the gurus, occam's razor states that this problem is simply user error. yeah right. We can argue whether this is an passive or aggressive strategy by MS, but it's hard to argue there isn't an issue getting windows 7 installed and patched in a reasonably efficient amount of time, at least without having a manual update strategy mapped out.

 

[RampantAndroid]

It's not my primary job responsibility, I'm a programmer, but I format and reinstall windows about twice a month on various pc's. Some with better hardware than others. It wasn't until 6 months or so ago that the windows 7 updates began to take an extremely long time. It happens without fail for me. It turned a lazy format + reinstall + patch, a half day, to over a day. If I forget to update the power settings before leaving for the night and the computer falls asleep, then add another day, because it takes forever for WU to even get a list of what updates the pc needs. I suspect those that don't have this problem really are just savvy about what manual updates need to be added first, and manage to navigate that path in an efficient manner. But it's clear by searching the internet that almost everyone is now having problems with win 7 updates when going from a clean install of win 7 sp1. Today a machine I just installed win 7 pro on basically took 6 hours and I ended up cancelling and looking for other methods. Finally I manually installed kb3138612, restarted, then did a search for updates and it found 229 updates in about 10 mins. None of the fix it tools or roll ups worked. I've now got a thumb drive with a few tools and updates at the ready.

I just find it funny the gurus insistence that MS is not responsible for this when there are hordes of people who used to have no difficulties running windows updates on clean win 7 installs, and all of a sudden right when MS is aggressively pushing their new OS, the old one gets extremely difficult to get patched. But to the gurus, occam's razor states that this problem is simply user error. yeah right. We can argue whether this is an passive or aggressive strategy by MS, but it's hard to argue there isn't an issue getting windows 7 installed and patched in a reasonably efficient amount of time, at least without having a manual update strategy mapped out.

How many people actually open up the control panel to do updates? If most people are just allowing Windows to automatically update itself (barring any updates horking the actual install) then those people will not really be paying attention to update times...they'll just get the reboot notification.

 

[MongGrel]

Still haven't rebooted and installed 14376 yet, it's sitting there atm.

The updates have been coming pretty fast since some of the Redstone things have rolled out.

 

[tcsenter]

Apparently MS has released (yet another) update/patch for Windows Update Client and Servicing Stack that reportedly aims to address the unusually long time to check/process updates in Windows 7 (and Server 2008 R2). Anecdotally there appears to be a couple positive reports that it actually works (this time). It can be obtained as part of an update rollup:

July 2016 Update Rollup

Haven't tested it myself but intend to. Note: Prior to installing the rollup, change Windows Update to "never check for updates". Then re-enable updates checking AFTER the rollup is installed (after reboot).

 

[IEC]

I had to install the June 2016 rollup to restore update functionality on my Win7 x64 machine. It was stuck at 0% otherwise and would eat 1/8 threads on my CPU needlessly burning up power.

 

[tcsenter]

I had to install the June 2016 rollup to restore update functionality on my Win7 x64 machine. It was stuck at 0% otherwise and would eat 1/8 threads on my CPU needlessly burning up power.

Yeah I've tested it on two systems now and it appears to actually work (but need to set "Never check for updates" prior to installation of the June rollup, then after installed successfully and reboot, re-enable updates checking).

 

[jaydee]

Just went through this mess with a new install this week. It's been 5.5 years since SP1 was released, why on earth didn't they just put out a Win7 SP2? I understand why they are not doing post Win10, but it seems more than reasonable to have done back in '14 or early '15, so everyone wouldn't have >1 GB of updates upon fresh install.

 

[Dahak]

.. why on earth didn't they just put out a Win7 SP2?

We may never know... but they sorta did that with the convenience update that was release and going forward most of the updates will now be cumulative meaning you dont need all of april,may to install say july

 

[tcsenter]

It's not my primary job responsibility, I'm a programmer, but I format and reinstall windows about twice a month on various pc's.

Best thing I've done in a long time:

Building a Standard Image of Windows 7: Step-by-Step Guide

Unless you load-in some applications like MS Office, should fit onto 8GB flash drive (resulting WIM image shouldn't be more than 7GB). Don't install any "full package/install" drivers for hardware. e.g. the ATI, NVIDIA, or Intel drivers for graphics. Just use the Microsoft provided 'generic' ones that come with Windows. You can download and install drivers on each system individually (or let Windows Update find them).

Only drivers I do bother including in the standard image are for common integrated network interfaces/adapters that are NOT included in-box; Realtek, Intel, Broadcom, and Marvell. Windows has drivers for many but not for some newer Gigabit and PCI-E based stuff. I don't actually "install" the drivers I just place the driver package (zip archive) in the "Public" downloads folder (e.g. \users\public\public downloads\ ). It will be retained in your standard image that you create, so that when you load the standard image onto a PC you can just go to the Public Downloads and have the drivers to get LAN working.

Important Tips in the comment section:

- You should stop Windows Media Player Sharing Service (wmpnetwk.exe) right before the /Generalize phase of Sysprep (pretty much the last step before shutting down), else you could get certain errors. Also leave any Domain prior to /Generalize

- The volume/drive to which you capture the WIM should be formatted NTFS because file size limitation is 4GB for FAT32. You can split the file later using ImageX.

 

[Ranulf]

Well, it is back to taking 40-60minutes to update just 1 file and now a new batch just afterwards pops up, 20 minutes so far at 0% download for 6 small updates to .Net or whatever.

A whole 3 weeks without windows randomly taking 60w of power and 12% cpu usage to spend 3-4 hours to find updates.

 

[tcsenter]

Well, it is back to taking 40-60minutes to update just 1 file and now a new batch just afterwards pops up, 20 minutes so far at 0% download for 6 small updates to .Net or whatever.

This is your update:
June 2016 Update Rollup

Multiple reports of working well, including two by myself. Note: Prior to installing the rollup, change Windows Update to "never check for updates". Then re-enable updates checking AFTER the rollup is installed (after reboot).

Prerequisites (noted in KB article): SP1 and April 2015 Servicing Stack Update

 

[jaydee]

We may never know... but they sorta did that with the convenience update that was release and going forward most of the updates will now be cumulative meaning you dont need all of april,may to install say july

Sorta... except there's no such thing as Win7 SP1 w/April 2015 Servicing Stack Update and May/June/whatever 2016 convenience update DVD that you can install the OS from. Every OEM and retail disk in the world is just Win7 w/SP1.

 

[Ranulf]

This is your update:
June 2016 Update Rollup

Multiple reports of working well, including two by myself. Note: Prior to installing the rollup, change Windows Update to "never check for updates". Then re-enable updates checking AFTER the rollup is installed (after reboot).

Prerequisites (noted in KB article): SP1 and April 2015 Servicing Stack Update

I'll give it a shot, it does show up in my optional updates list of windows update. The update last night ended up taking 2.5 hours to install.

Edit: Seems to have worked for now with 3131608. Fast update scans/downloads are back. I used the solo update file from the KB article and windows froze at the reboot config/don't power down your system screen for 35 minutes. Powered down and restarted the system and it updated fine.

 

[smsgator]

Anyways, that's what I believe. It just seems like a strange coincedence, that around the time that Windows 10 was released, Windows 7's Update procedure simply started taking HOURS and HOURS to run. Before it even gives you the list of available updates.

I'm not even talking about a PC that is installed fresh, from a SP1-U disc. That takes like 7 hours.

I'm talking about a PC that was current as of March 2015. Started at 4PM today, still hasn't show much progress, although, one core of the E3300 (2.5Ghz C2D, should be an OK spec to run Win7 on), has been pinned mostly all throughout that time.

Disgusting.

All MS would have to do, is release a "Fix Rollup", even if they don't want to release a full SP release.

This is pretty-much class-action stuff, "Not fit for purpose", if MS is intentionally crippling their existing OSes, to force people to move to 10.

I've noticed the Windows 7 update problem on multiple systems.

I think that it must be intentional.

Now what I do is to run Belarc Advisor and get the list of uninstalled updates and find and download them on the Microsoft site, then install them manually one at a time. It's not so bad once you're caught up, but a new install of Windows 7 can be painful. Actually new installs tend to work in terms of updates, up to a certain point, before failing.

When installing updates manually be certain to do a "net stop wuauserv" after opening a command line window as an administrator, before each update, or else the program will try to go out and look for updates online and the manual update won't work.

For new copies of Windows 7 Pro look on eBay for people selling broken disk drives with a valid COA. Not sure of the legal reasons behind this method. Someone is obtaining old broken PCs running Windows 7, deactivating the COA, and reselling them. I think each COA gets 3 or 4 uninstalls/reinstalls. Then, if you want to upgrade to Windows 10 you can do so.

I'm not sure what the real disadvantages of Windows 10 versus Windows 7 are. I had some Windows 8 machines and Windows 10 is much better. You can turn off nearly all the spyware that's built in. But I have not updated any of my Windows 7 systems to Windows 10 yet. 7 more days to decide.

BTW there are some roll ups, the last one just a few weeks ago, but they aren't a super-set of all updates since SP1.

 

[Eug]

I had update problems on my Win 7 machine a while back, but it was actually worse on my Win 10 machines for a while (last year). WU would sit there for a while, and then decide the updates weren't available or something. It was very frustrating.

I wonder if this is just a problem with Windows Update in general, so I agree it'd be nice to have downloadable package updates as described in this thread. Maybe on Win 7 people are noticing it more partially because Win 7 is an older OS and there are more updates to install? Or if it's just because the technical aspects of the Win 7 update process are different, it sounds like it's not really an intentional problem but just less than stellar implementation.

However, in my case, recently at least in the last several months the Win 7 updates were fine. In fact, I never really noticed them since they would just update in the background automatically. Maybe they did fail from time to time, but eventually it would get updated. I stopped trying to manually do the updates some time last year so I wouldn't actually know if they failed or not the first time each update was tried.

 

[tidy]

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[MustISO]

I've done quite a few fresh installs over the past few weeks and had none of the issues you describe. Hardware has been varied. Done Win 7 Pro and Home Prem and no issues with updates. It's actually the best it's ever been. I'm using the same order as you.

Never had an update fail using this method and if finds them in less than 5 minutes.

 

[tidy]

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[Wheels76]

How many people actually open up the control panel to do updates? If most people are just allowing Windows to automatically update itself (barring any updates horking the actual install) then those people will not really be paying attention to update times...they'll just get the reboot notification.

Perfect, so they'll be cruising around the internet with a vulnerable version of Windows 7 for a week, because it takes that long for the downloader to properly index what updates need to take place. Nothing wrong with that, because they're not savvy users, and will have no idea they're vulnerable.

By the way, just did a new install, and all the previous patches that I know of to get around this issue have been revoked, and so this time I just let it take care of itself, and it took at least 4 days. Not sure exactly when it finally figured out what updates it needs.

 

[tidy]

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[VirtualLarry]

I install all the .Net framework security patches, then another pass with the security patches, and then another pass with IE updates. Then another pass for whatever got missed.

 

[lxskllr]

The issue has been fully resolved. You install KB3020369 and then KB3172605 * over an SP1 ISO clean install, and then proceed as normal. Checking for updates after that will take less than an hour even on a slow machine. Downloading and installing may take more than an hour, and there will be some failures**, but you just do a second pass to get the rest of the updates. The entire process will take 4 hours or less, not 4 days.

LoL! That's insane to think that's appropriate o/s behavior. I don't think any of my gnu/linux updates have taken more than ten minutes, and that's including compiling kernel modules from source in some cases. If an update took anywhere close to an hour, I'd be trying to find what's broken. MS needs to get it's crap together, and build an updater that works.

 

[tidy]

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[Ketchup]

LoL! That's insane to think that's appropriate o/s behavior. I don't think any of my gnu/linux updates have taken more than ten minutes, and that's including compiling kernel modules from source in some cases. If an update took anywhere close to an hour, I'd be trying to find what's broken. MS needs to get it's crap together, and build an updater that works.

This thread is about Windows 7. Two versions ago. We are on Windows 10 now, the one that now releases new builds every few months specifically to prevent issues like this.