Only on occasion. One time, I basically nuked the database and started from scratch, but I've long since upgraded to Windows 10, decided that wasn't gonna work if they kept taking features out, went to Linux Mint, and then realized that I hated having out of date packages, and switched to Fedora.

Thank you so much. That DID solve my laptop's issue of getting stuck searching for updates. After I installed it, it took it 20 minutes to find over 200 updates (probably less, but I was afk).

And thanks a lot everyone who bothered to post and suggest solutions. I've found quite a few useful alternatives thanks to you guys.

Also, WSUSoffline seems like the most efficient way for regular updating. I tried it on another comp. And not only did it take only a few seconds to get a list of every single w7 update. It used 100% of my bandwidth when downloading them.

A tool served from a website written in Russian (sorry if it's other language, I'm not Cyrillic expert), via http, with no signature provided (at least I haven't seen one), used to update the operating system. What could go wrong?

MDL thread. Most likely unreadable if you don't have an MDL account.
But yeah, best to double and triple check updating procedures.

I had too many issues with 7 so I just went back to XP where everything is safe and familiar. I can't run anything modern but that just means no modern malware can run either.

Unsurprisingly, after downloading and installing all the found updates, then checking to see if everything's fine and up to date, we're back to the never-ending search problem.

I've disabled auto-updates and I think I'll probably use either WSUSoffline or Winfuture from this point on.

Updates for Windows 7 stopped working a while back on both my desktop and laptop PCs.

Problem:

- Both PCs are set to "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them"
- Updates showed up on the "Windows Update" panel of the Control Panel, but it was impossible to download them (downloading remained at 0%, no matter how long I left it).


Solution: (from https://blog.krissmilne.tech/windows/windows-7/windows-7-stuck-on-checking-for-updates)

- Download Windows Update KB3172605 from Microsoft - links in above article (make sure you use the correct 32-bit or 64-bit version). Note - this download was VERY slow for me and took a long time to finish.

- Double click on the update to install it. The installation will reach the point where it says something like "searching your PC for installed updates". At this point, don't think the process has hung or failed - it took SEVERAL HOURS on both my PCs to successfully finish (it may pay to leave this running overnight if you can).

- Once the process has finished you should be able to download and install updates normally. Updating has worked perfectly on both my PCs since installing this update a few months ago.

As a general tip, if I have a large number of updates to download and install, I split them up into smaller blocks e.g. just the security updates or just the NET framework updates. I download and install each block separately, so that any problems are easier to isolate.

Hope this helps if you are having problems.

Rest assured, these problems have absolutely nothing to do with the introduction of Windows 10 and I'm sure Microsoft is working tirelessly to overcome them;)

I dare not allow any upgrades. I'm afraid I'll end up with Windows 10 on my machine...

They're no longer providing the free upgrades so...

Speaking of failed updates and broken promises. Does anyone know what happened with MS Silverlight?
I don't even know what it is. All I know is that it's installed in my machine.
Though probably not for long.

My Win7 also refuses to update unless it is done automatically. So when the Win10 update was trying to sneak in through the backdoor I didn't update my PC for about 2 months. But now I'm back on auto-updates and it seems to be going okay.

I seem to be getting nowhere very fast. None of the solutions has worked for me, I can't even install the windows troubleshooter tool.
I spent 2 days with Simplix trying to install updates before I finally gave up when I found that none of them had installed.
I ran Wsus, and it downloaded a lot of updates, but then my laptop crashed after it was done and I don't know how to install them. Tried the doc subfolder, but the links given in files there point to a help article that doesn't seem to exist anymore, and when I ran the update installer exe file, which I found in the client folder, I got the following error:

'Medium does not support Microsoft Windows (w61 x64 enu).
ERROR: Medium neither supports your Windows nor your Office version.'

My laptop is definitely running a legit copy of Windows 7, and it is x64 based.

Thank you, but that download patch refused to install, just like all the others I've tried.

'The following updates were not installed:
Update for Windows (KB3102810)

Error code: WindowsUpdate_8000FFFF'

I am getting rather desperate. :-(

Shall I try to repair Windows 7? Will that work? I read that to do that I have to remove Service Packs, and I fear that will put me back to the beginning when it comes to updates. :-((
Bandwidth is expensive here, and very slow, and it will take me forever to get them all done, if they even install.

Editing because Gog refuses to put the text I selected into italics. Bah.

Yes, I've recently reinstalled Win7 and have had issues with the windows update service taking *days* to finish its tasks. It got to a point where it installed an update which seemed to solve the issue and I've never had such problems since, but it was frustrating while it lasted.

As to what update it was that solved the issue, I'm not sure unfortunately. I can tell you however that it's not included in the Windows 7 convenience upgrade patch that MS has released in the first part of this year.

It was supposed to be a MS equivalent of Adobe Flash, but it never got traction. That however did not stop MS from pushing it out until the end of times - I have never installed it and have never used it, though I'm assuming some more exotic MS products might need it to run properly.