A different Windows 7 Update problem

[sorcerer]

I think we've all experienced the Windows 7 update problem (the longest I had to wait was 67 hours!) but this is a new one on me. Without exception, all problems I've seen before have been stuck on checking for updates but this one that I have on the bench at the moment has found the updates (65 optional ones), downloaded them, and has now been stuck for the last 10 hours on 'Preparing to Install'.

It's an Emachines EL1850 running Win 7 HP SP1 x64 with 2.00GB RAM and a Celeron 450 2.2GHz.

Any ideas on how to get it moving again? Oh, and I should also say CPU useage is between 1 and 5%, not stuck at 100% like I've seen on other machines with update problems.

TIA.

 

[Mick]

This tip stolen from this site:

1. Click Start, Run, type: cmd. Right click the Program Menu entry that appear and select “Run as Administrator”. Press Enter. Run the following command in the opened window: Net stop WuAuServ
2. Wait for the process to finish.
3. Click Start, Run, type: %windir% and press Enter.
4. In the opened folder, rename the folder SoftwareDistribution to SoftwareDistributionOLD
5. Click Start, Run, type: cmd. Right click the Program Menu entry that appear and select “Run as Administrator”. Press Enter. Run the following command in the opened window: Net start WuAuServ
6. Wait for the process to finish.
7. Reboot.

(Of course, this assumes you get it to start somehow. I guess they rebooted to safe mode [although I wouldn't have thought WuAuServ was running anyway in that case], but the author doesn't say so.)

 

[G8racingfool]

Yea, it sounds like either a package wasn't downloaded properly or there's something in the Windows install that's causing issues.

Do what @Mick said and also run the System Update Readiness Tool. Check the log (\Windows\Logs\CBS\CheckSUR.log) afterwards to see what it found and if it fixed it on it's own or requires you to intervene.

 

[sorcerer]

Thanks guys, will do.

 

[GTP]

Also try downloading them in smaller blocks of - say - 10 at a time.

 

[Diggs]

Pffft - Seen that too many times. Reboot (meaning hard shutdown - 6 seconds on the power button) - Some updates install and then they go back for more to finish. never had a problem so far.