Plagued By Windows Update Service on Windows 7 - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 07:19:25 am
content: i have three machines here, two are desktops and one is a laptop. They all run Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate.Some time ago (about 12 months ago) i noticed that my laptop AND my spare desktop stopped getting windows updates and the 'wuauserv' service that handles the whole process was constantly consuming cpu time.i have already spent hours and hours of time researching and trying to fix this issue but to no avail, indeed on my spare desktop i even completely re-installed windows, but the problem just came back after a few of the updates. My only recourse at the moment is to simply disable the wuauserv service on these machines.now as of today my main desktop pc is now suffering from it.I wrote a blog entry about the issue a couple of months ago:http://dexterslab2013.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/windows-7-wuauserv-with-high-cpu-no.htmlis anyone else suffering from this problem?it's almost like microsoft are silently trying to kill off windows 7 systems

author: RGB255_0_0
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 07:23:49 am
content: It's recently been fixed. Leave the machines on overnight and you'll have your updates listed and future checks are more normal.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 07:31:35 am
content: I have this problem. It only started a month ago, but then I do my updates manually - so it might have been waiting in the wings ... until I stepped into the poo pile.I, too, have had to put a bullet inwuauservto get relief.Fixed?Hmmm.... I might be game to try again...... later.

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 07:56:26 am
content: Quote from: RGB255_0_0 on June 15, 2016, 07:23:49 amif it's been recently fixed why has it just started happening on my main pc?Do you have any information from microsoft about it?

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 08:08:17 am
content: Quote from: Brumby on June 15, 2016, 07:31:35 amwell it's good to know someone else has the issue!let us know how you get on...

author: RGB255_0_0
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 08:35:41 am
content: Has been fixed for me sincehttp://www.infoworld.com/article/3069693/microsoft-windows/windows-7-update-scans-taking-forever-kb-3153199-may-solve-the-problem.htmlIf you haven't done an update prior to that, and have an old, slow CPU expect the initial check to take hours. A dual core Celeron took 6 hours; checks now take minutes.And I've been experiencing problems with svchost on XP before that were later fixed. Windows 7's also had an issue whereby svchost was consuming over a GB of RAM; they fixed that and created the latest one.

author: AndreasF
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 09:15:55 am
content: I had a similar issue last weekend when I resurrected an old Win7 machine that hadn't been turned on in about 3 years. Essentially "Checking for updates" never completed. I didn't check how much resources the service used, as I wasn't doing anything else at the time.I found this blog posthttps://blog.krissmilne.tech/windows/windows-7/windows-7-stuck-on-checking-for-updatesand followed its instruction to install the stand-alone update clienthttps://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3138612That fixed it, even though it still took quite some time to find all the updates (ultimately approx 1GB download)I had a few updates since then, and those went without a hitch.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 12:43:28 pm
content: A list of the patches required (the standalone Update Client has never worked for me) is maintained here:http://wu.krelay.de/en/I'm pretty sure MS are doing it on purpose, that or they've suddenly become flamingly incompetent. Things always worked smoothly before they started pushing Windows 10..

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 01:08:46 pm
content: http://wuauclt.info/scripts.aspSometimes you just need to delete the "Software Distribution" directory.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 01:10:11 pm
content: Quote from: madires on June 15, 2016, 01:08:46 pmOh, believe me, that won't help if it's a fresh install. It may or may (likely..) not help with a random failure to update.

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 01:49:19 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on June 15, 2016, 01:10:11 pmyea, i tried a fresh win7 32 bit install on my other desktop... i was utterly dumbfounded when exactly the same thing cropped up after the first wave of updates and not a single file of any description had even been copied onto the system after the installation of windows. It baffles me that something as simple as downloading updates is so seemingly complex and seems to be ever on the knife edge of breakingQuote from: Monkeh on June 15, 2016, 12:43:28 pmmy thoughts too, from what i have seen it's a reoccurring thing... they keep breaking it accidentally on purpose, encouraging everyone to upgrade?so as of now my main pc has picked up some updates that are ready to go on3153199 didn't help my laptop thoughi think i may just resort back to disabling it again and use WSUS to get me offline copies of the updateshttp://www.wsusoffline.net/

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 01:53:32 pm
content: Quote from: dexters_lab on June 15, 2016, 01:49:19 pmCheck the link I posted, 3153199 has been superseded as of yesterday (patch tuesday).

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 15, 2016, 01:58:03 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on June 15, 2016, 01:53:32 pmblimey, it's hard to keep up!after i put 3153199 on i did a update using WSUS so i should be upto date as of about 4 hours or so ago... wuauserv still grinding away 25% of my cpu doing seemingly nothing since then though!