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

[VirtualLarry]

Going 9 months without updates is going to make it take a while to process all of the pending updates. That's your fault, not Microsoft's...

If you don't want to run regular updates, that's your choice, but you have to expect that it's going to take a long time to get caught up when you do eventually let it check for updates.

I'm not complaining that it takes time to do updates, I'm complaining that it takes TWICE THE TIME to do updates, from March 2015, than it does, to do a full set to updates, from a fresh SP1-U disc.

Something is clearly amiss here, although the two systems I ran updates on before, one was a G1610 with 8GB of RAM, and one was a Q9300 with 8GB of RAM. This one is an E3300 with 2GB of RAM. (Those rigs, used almost 4GB of RAM doing updates, and took 6-7 hours each. This rig, doesn't go much over 2GB Commit Charge, but takes ... longer?)


http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/system-requirements


Windows 7 system requirements

If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it takes:

1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

 

[bononos]

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.........

No you're not alone. There has been tons of complaints and it probably has something to do with how WindowsVista/7/8 handles interdependencies in update packages. They probably didn't intentionally sabotage the update procedure but didn't foresee how turdlike it was going to be. Not releasing an update rollup 2 for Win7 was probably intentional to force users to upgrade.

Win7 update basically never worked for me since last year which forced me to upgrade to Win10. It would mostly take a long time and fail after a few hours about 80% of the update attempts. This mess among others made me reevaluate how much I really needed Microsoft products and services and got me to switch to libreoffice and try other alternatives.

 

[bononos]

I'm not complaining that it takes time to do updates, I'm complaining that it takes TWICE THE TIME to do updates, from March 2015, than it does, to do a full set to updates, from a fresh SP1-U disc.

Something is clearly amiss here, although the two systems I ran updates on before, one was a G1610 with 8GB of RAM, and one was a Q9300 with 8GB of RAM. This one is an E3300 with 2GB of RAM. (Those rigs, used almost 4GB of RAM doing updates, and took 6-7 hours each. This rig, doesn't go much over 2GB Commit Charge, but takes ... longer?)
......

Its not that your 'slow update' pc's are lacking in hardware requirements or that you've got malware. I've got pc's that have triple the stated requirements and they still hang during Win7 updates.

 

[mikeymikec]

Its not that your 'slow update' pc's are lacking in hardware requirements or that you've got malware. I've got pc's that have triple the stated requirements and they still hang during Win7 updates.

If you're using the word 'hang' in the same way that I would (ie. pointer freezes, no keyboard or mouse response, and leaving it for more than say two minutes makes no difference), then that's a problem that you need to fix rather than blaming it on MS.

I'm not complaining that it takes time to do updates, I'm complaining that it takes TWICE THE TIME to do updates, from March 2015, than it does, to do a full set to updates, from a fresh SP1-U disc.

I did a fresh Win7 SP1 install on my PC at the end of September. I noticed nothing out of the ordinary in terms of time taken to install updates on a fresh install.

On a fresh Win7 SP1 install, my tactic to avoid update install failures is to install them in batches. The first set of updates I install are .net ones (only security updates, no new versions), the next set are updates from the earliest year, and so forth. Sometimes I combine a year or two's updates if there are only about 20 of them. IE11 goes on separately.

I've also got a Win81 RTM install going on another haswell PC today. It has taken over 90 minutes to install 151 out of 167 updates so far.

One other thing - any PC running Vista or later will take ages longer to install updates if Windows decides that enough updates have failed, to trigger reversing all of them.

While I would submit a laundry list of complaints to MS about Windows, a good few of them about Windows Update, I think your position in this thread has turned into a meandering mess of an opinion. It might help if you admitted somewhere along the way that you've made some very basic mistakes and that you jumped to conclusions, but instead you've attempted to defend your original opinion despite the fact that some of the glaring errors you've made dismantled half your argument.

I have no idea why you posted the system requirements for modern versions of Windows, the fact of the matter is that 'system requirements' means exactly that - you have to have a spec that meets those requirements in order to run Windows full stop. It's not a "recommended system spec" by any stretch of the imagination. If anyone said "I'm having performance problems with my Win7 system, here are the specs" and posted those minimum specs, everyone would point and say "that's your reason right there".

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've also got a Win81 RTM install going on another haswell PC today. It has taken over 90 minutes to install 151 out of 167 updates so far.

If you've already come to the point at which the updates have started to actually install, then I consider that to be the "home stretch".

I've been talking about multi-hour waits, while one core of the CPU just "churns", waiting there patiently, for the list of updates to appear.

I have no idea why you posted the system requirements for modern versions of Windows, the fact of the matter is that 'system requirements' means exactly that - you have to have a spec that meets those requirements in order to run Windows full stop. It's not a "recommended system spec" by any stretch of the imagination. If anyone said "I'm having performance problems with my Win7 system, here are the specs" and posted those minimum specs, everyone would point and say "that's your reason right there".

So is it your opinion that on anything less than a Haswell quad-core with 8GB of RAM, that Windows Update taking an insufferably long time, is acceptable? Even if the PC in question meets the "minimum system requirements"? That MS should get a pass on WU taking nearly half a day, on a fresh install, because "everybody knows" that those minimum requirements are actually a joke, and you need a far more grunty rig than that, just to do basic OS maintenance?

 

[fralexandr]

I had similar issues with it. I tried windows 10 on my m11x r1 since windows said it'd be ok, but dell didn't have drivers for it, so I factory restored it. I waited ~an hour and windows update didn't find anything once it finished win 7 sp 1/new windows update agent... I thought there was a problem so I contacted microsoft tech support. Nothing they did solved it, until the tier 2 tech support eventually said to leave it on overnight until noon... Since the tier 2 tech support tried various patches and fixes, it broke internet explorer, my hidden dell factory partition and my GPU switching.

I was ok with it for a few months, but apparently internet explorer is required to INSTALL flashplayer and a few other programs... So I figured I'd try reinstalling from a windows 7 sp1 cd to see if it changed anything. It got stuck after windows 7 sp 1/windows update agent again... I had to wait over 10 hours to find ANY updates at all.

After a while I didn't turn it on for 1-2 weeks and it found a windows defender update, but was sticking at 0% downloaded for more than 30 minutes... so I manually updated it...

 

[bononos]

If you're using the word 'hang' in the same way that I would (ie. pointer freezes, no keyboard or mouse response, and leaving it for more than say two minutes makes no difference), then that's a problem that you need to fix rather than blaming it on MS.
.......

Obviously I meant the update process seems to hang not the whole pc if you took the short time to read my posts.

 

[mikeymikec]

If you've already come to the point at which the updates have started to actually install, then I consider that to be the "home stretch".

I've been talking about multi-hour waits, while one core of the CPU just "churns", waiting there patiently, for the list of updates to appear.

A Vista machine (32-bit, C2D, 3GB RAM) I clean-installed recently took about three hours to get to the point you're talking about, so no, it's not a Win7-specific thing.

The "home stretch" you described takes bloody ages to run on a fresh install as well, even on Win8.0 RTM.

So is it your opinion that on anything less than a Haswell quad-core with 8GB of RAM, that Windows Update taking an insufferably long time, is acceptable? Even if the PC in question meets the "minimum system requirements"? That MS should get a pass on WU taking nearly half a day, on a fresh install, because "everybody knows" that those minimum requirements are actually a joke, and you need a far more grunty rig than that, just to do basic OS maintenance?

A fresh install scenario is not an everyday "basic OS maintenance" occurrence for the average user. Also, if you decide not to run a PC for six months and then ~60-90 patches download and install, again, that's not everyday, basic OS maintenance. Most people have their PCs on every day or at least every other day.

Those minimum requirements are not a joke, they're just not recommended system requirements.

I just did a WU check on my PC, it took 22 seconds to run. Granted, it will take longer when the monthly patch day comes, but even if it takes ten minutes in that scenario, that's hardly a big deal on a multi-core PC with enough RAM.

Also, I've just booted my Vista-era C2D 4GB laptop running Win7 64 that hasn't been booted in a while (last update installed 22/10), and it took about 1hr 40 minutes to do the initial processing of updates before installation (30 important updates, 8 optional). About 30 seconds of that time was spent at 100% CPU usage while an MSE update installed. Peak RAM usage during that time was 1.7GB. Putting this into plausible context, we're talking about an old computer that hasn't been used for just over two months (so it has missed two monthly patch cycles); it seems unlikely that the primary user of this machine would be in a serious hurry to unleash the maximum potential of this computer in such a scenario. The user could check their email, type a letter or any number of low-end tasks that probably don't benefit greatly from multiple cores. Should WU be quicker? Sure. Is it evidence of MS sabotaging older versions of Windows? No.

Obviously I meant the update process seems to hang not the whole pc if you took the short time to read my posts.

I read both your posts again; there doesn't seem to be any indication of this being what you actually mean. You didn't say "WU appears to hang", you said "I've got PCs that.... and they still hang during updates". Please don't try to blame me because you didn't word things in a way that makes what you intended to convey clear.

 

[denis280]

No you're not alone. There has been tons of complaints and it probably has something to do with how WindowsVista/7/8 handles interdependencies in update packages. They probably didn't intentionally sabotage the update procedure but didn't foresee how turdlike it was going to be. Not releasing an update rollup 2 for Win7 was probably intentional to force users to upgrade.

Bingo.Just did a fresh install back to 7 the other day, after flushing win 10 and in deed it is fishy:sneaky:

 

[ultimatebob]

You have ONE PC with a problem and say it is a conspiracy.
I manage a few dozen PCs, that have no problems at all, and I say there is no conspiracy.

I think my dozens far outweigh your lone PC.

No, I've seen this problem as well. Every time I need to update a Windows 7 SP1 image that is a few months old, it now takes HOURS to check for updates and install them. Microsoft could release a single roll-up package to fix this problem, but they won't.

It seems like it's Microsoft's way of saying screw you and upgrade to Windows 10 already.

 

[Mem]

I don't think Microsoft are sabotaging Win7, fact is Win7 is getting old and coming to EOL sooner or later, Win7 fans will have to deal with that regardless.


How they deal with it is a different matter, but nothing lasts forever, we all know this.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I don't think Microsoft are sabotaging Win7, fact is Win7 is getting old and coming to EOL sooner or later, Win7 fans will have to deal with that regardless.


How they deal with it is a different matter, but nothing lasts forever, we all know this.

But deploying an OS, with an Update mechanism, that doesn't scale properly with the number of OS updates required, is foolish. And it's going to catch up with Microsoft eventually. With Windows 10, they won't be able to simply sweep it under the rug, and say "hey, you need to upgrade to the newest version of Windows", because there will only be one version of Windows.

IMHO, it's already borderline class-action material right now, as ultimatebob said, it takes HOURS for a slightly out-of-date PC to even get the list of available updates, nevermind install them. That's BROKEN.

 

[mikeymikec]

But deploying an OS, with an Update mechanism, that doesn't scale properly with the number of OS updates required, is foolish. And it's going to catch up with Microsoft eventually. With Windows 10, they won't be able to simply sweep it under the rug, and say "hey, you need to upgrade to the newest version of Windows", because there will only be one version of Windows.

Nope. Just like Win8.0 was updated to Win81, Win10 already has experienced this (there was a Win10 update recently that up'd the build number). MS will just do that as often as they feel is wise to work around WU's inadequacies.

Wouldn't it be odd if the only reason why Win10 is "the last version of Windows" is to work around this problem?

 

[lxskllr]

I think Windows just sucks with updates. One of the reasons I switched my mother to Ubuntu was Vista hammering the cpu and hd, and taking forever for some stupid updates. I can't imagine what it could possibly be doing to take so long. It would take about half as long to update Vista as it would take to install Ubuntu fresh, including custom partitioning. That's ridiculous.

 

[denis280]

Wouldn't it be odd if the only reason why Win10 is "the last version of Windows" is to work around this problem?

Maybe your right mikey,but it still sucks

 

[Mem]

But deploying an OS, with an Update mechanism, that doesn't scale properly with the number of OS updates required, is foolish. And it's going to catch up with Microsoft eventually. With Windows 10, they won't be able to simply sweep it under the rug, and say "hey, you need to upgrade to the newest version of Windows", because there will only be one version of Windows.

IMHO, it's already borderline class-action material right now, as ultimatebob said, it takes HOURS for a slightly out-of-date PC to even get the list of available updates, nevermind install them. That's BROKEN.

I think it is more to do with the new direction Microsoft are going with ie upgrades/updates and future of Microsoft OS, then older operating systems like Win7 etc.

End of the day you don't have to use Win7 or 10 etc , so regardless plenty of operating systems out there for you to choose from.

I do feel this is way overblown as usual, but then it's the OS forums and we all know how dramatic things are here ie from Start menus to tracking etc...

Btw I updated my mum's PC (she is nearly 80) which has Win7 and had no issues, moot point really since she is getting Win10 soon( new laptop for Christmas).

 

[SparkyJJO]

I think Windows just sucks with updates. One of the reasons I switched my mother to Ubuntu was Vista hammering the cpu and hd, and taking forever for some stupid updates. I can't imagine what it could possibly be doing to take so long. It would take about half as long to update Vista as it would take to install Ubuntu fresh, including custom partitioning. That's ridiculous.

Vista could get abusive on HD thrashing. I really don't know why but it would.

7 fixed most of it.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Larry, last week I had one Vista computer that took hours just to find the updates (it was a clean Vista SP2 install). After initial 200+ updates or so getting installed, WU times got back to normal.

Vista could get abusive on HD thrashing. I really don't know why but it would.

Noticed no issues on my side.

 

[Mushkins]

IMHO, it's already borderline class-action material right now, as ultimatebob said, it takes HOURS for a slightly out-of-date PC to even get the list of available updates, nevermind install them. That's BROKEN.

You can't file a class action lawsuit because your computer is jacked up.

If you have a slightly out of date PC taking *hours* for Windows Update to list the updates, there's something wrong with your PC. I do at least one of these a week, Windows 7 Professional, based off an old image that just barely has SP1 on it, so there's a good 250+ updates it needs. The list shows up in maybe 5 minutes tops every time I do it.

 

[Magic Carpet]

If you have a slightly out of date PC taking *hours* for Windows Update to list the updates, there's something wrong with your PC.

The machine I had, had 6 cores and 16 gigs of RAM w/ a fast Intel SSD, so specs clearly weren't an issue. Something else was the problem but I didn't bother to investigate as I just let WU running, until it eventually finished the job. After that WU took about several seconds for the same check. It's definitely not a common "issue", though but clearly, it happens.

I have noticed lately that after I do a clean install of Windows 7, or Vista, when I run Windows Update for the first time, it takes a very long time to check for updates. This only happens during the initial check for updates. Once I've installed all available updates, future checks for updates will be fairly quick.

For example, I've just did a clean install of Windows 7, and it took over 90 minutes for Windows Update to find any updates (it eventually found over 200 updates). While Windows Update can use massive amounts of RAM at times (its was using 1.4GB when checking for updates) which can lead to big issues with slowdowns on computers with not enough RAM installed, this laptop has 4GB RAM of which only 59% was being used.

This is a clean install of Windows 7, with no settings changed and no 3rd party installed, not even antivirus software.

I've noticed this too after restoring two Win7 machines to factory condition, although it was about 30 minutes for me. My guess is that perhaps the servers are giving Win10 updates a higher priority.

 

[DustinBrowder]

Win10 is NSA's wet dream. Its 1984 on steroids. Its Hitlers hard on.

Apps spy on you, cortana spies on you, even basic search spies on you, telemetry spies on you, they log your key strokes, automated updates that can't be stopped, searching and analyzing your hard drive for "pirated" software, directed ads on all the programs you are using, geo data, personal data, business data, etc... its all collected and sent to microsoft.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Do you have hard proof of any of this or are you just spouting off with copy/pasted posts in multiple threads, again?

 

[RampantAndroid]

But deploying an OS, with an Update mechanism, that doesn't scale properly with the number of OS updates required, is foolish. And it's going to catch up with Microsoft eventually. With Windows 10, they won't be able to simply sweep it under the rug, and say "hey, you need to upgrade to the newest version of Windows", because there will only be one version of Windows.

IMHO, it's already borderline class-action material right now, as ultimatebob said, it takes HOURS for a slightly out-of-date PC to even get the list of available updates, nevermind install them. That's BROKEN.

I've never seen it take hours outside of a VM that's got 2GB of RAM and a single core assigned to it. I think you may misunderstand what class action suits are for.

Additionally, if you look at the update logs, there are delta and full file downloads, so it could be that it's easier to go from SP1 to current than some midpoint to current? Windows 10 seems to be a bit different anyway, since we've had the original OS, some updates and then a big update in November - and the big updates don't take long.

 

[bononos]

You can't file a class action lawsuit because your computer is jacked up.

If you have a slightly out of date PC taking *hours* for Windows Update to list the updates, there's something wrong with your PC. I do at least one of these a week, Windows 7 Professional, based off an old image that just barely has SP1 on it, so there's a good 250+ updates it needs. The list shows up in maybe 5 minutes tops every time I do it.

Thats another myth. The slow update problem can't be swept under a rug since its quite widespread. Theres nothing wrong with the pc's that I maintain in my family and the update process still hangs and fails which could take over an hour without completing a single update.

The recent 1511 update could be in part meant to help resolve this slow update issue and bloated disk space requirement by keeping Win10 installations fresh with regular large 1511 type updates by clearing out the update history, and not let piles of updates with complex interdepencies clog up the update process.

 

[matricks]

I set up a special-purpose tripleboot laptop over the weekend, with Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. 2520M, 8 GB RAM and 250 GB painfully slow 5400 RPM drive. The Windows 7 initial "search for updates" took about 90 minutes, and found 215 (~250 with optionals, I think) updates to install. Subsequent searches went a little quicker, but still slow.

Windows 8.1 initial search for updates took less than 15 minutes, and surprisingly found 165 updates.

My conclusion, from comparisons on the exact same system, is that Windows 7 is just a poor performer compared to its later versions. This does not contradict my prior experiences with Windows 7, going to Windows 8.1 and later 10. The conspiracy theory has no basis in reality. Your favorite operating system is just slow.