January 12th 2016 Security Update Release Summary

Anak said:

Thanks Brds!

Borg, I've also heard of the server shifting as described by Seffrid.

So, anyone not using 10 got put on the back burner

While running a fix it for the updater, I came across some MS mixed messages.

The first pic was the message I got after the updater agent fix it ran. The second was what I saw when I scrolled on down the log. Soo....does that mean it THINKS it fixed it?

(No, it didn't fix it BTW)

Borg 386 said:

Updater has been exhibiting some strange behavior for a bit now, such as after running for 45 mins, one moment showing 0% downloaded & the next moment showing 80% downloaded. I'm wondering if this instability in the updater agent is caused on my 7 64 machines because of my refusal to allow any patch related to Win 10 or disallowing anything telemetry related on the machine.

I had been experiencing Windows Update problems for at least a year and have attempted numerous fixes.

Symptoms have included:

Windows could not check for updates
High RAM usage by svchost.exe (netsvcs) when daily update check runs) with datastore.edb read/ write issues.
BITS service not starting when called.

Not all symptoms occurred at the same time.

Anyway I fixed problems many times and everything seemed okay but eventually there would be another problem.

I do not have any Windows 10 upgrade or any telemetry updates installed and currently Windows Updates works just fine.

The problem with running automated fixes - MS Fixit or batch files to reset WU

Some services may need to be stopped before running fixes. Some fixes work better without an internet connection. Some automated fixes are supposed to delete certain directories and file but do not always succeed and manual confirmation of deletion is required. Even resorting to force deleting problem files may be necessary.

It may be necessary to force install a particular version of Windows Update Agent / Client.

There is an MS Fixit that is supposed to completely remove then reinstall Windows Update Agent/ Client but even then it does not work exactly as intended.

After running fixes I have found it better to keep Windows Update service disabled for 24 hours (until well after the next automatically scheduled update check) before enabling Windows Update service then immediately rebooting and then running an update check.

EDIT:

Forgot to mention that after fixing - Windows Updates has been working just fine for me for the last few months with no issues at all.

Callender said:

I had been experiencing Windows Update problems for at least a year and have attempted numerous fixes.

Some services may need to be stopped before running fixes. Some fixes work better without an internet connection. Some automated fixes are supposed to delete certain directories and file but do not always succeed and manual confirmation of deletion is required. Even resorting to force deleting problem files may be necessary.

All my updater issues started around the release of 10. All my Win versions were slow for about a month, but then 7 32 & 8.1 straightened out. 7 64 for some reason stayed problematic & got worse.

I noticed that various fixes involved certain steps. My Wife was happy because she said it was keeping me busy . The step that worked was the one I tried in post 22. Today wasn't so bad, 64 took 20 mins to d/l the updates. Not bad considering last time it ran 2 hrs looking for updates & I shut it off. Win 7 32 took 4 mins to d/l the updates & 8.1 about the same time.