Question about Updating Windows 7 without Problems

I'm not an expert at anything. :) The following works for me. Other people may have a different way of installing updates.

Microsoft offers different kinds of updates. For all practical purposes they are:

Important/Critical updates which offer significant benefits, such as improved security and reliability. Examples include security and critical reliability updates.
Recommended updates address non-critical problems and help enhance your computing experience. Examples include upgrades to Windows features and less important software updates.
Optional updates are not downloaded or installed automatically. Examples include less critical driver updates and new Windows or Microsoft software. The user must manually select these updates for installation.

After installing a fresh copy of windows 7 on my computers, I always make sure I turn off automatic updating. That way I can control when and which updates eventually get installed. I can go through the list of available updates and hide any updates I absolutely don't want. (Right click the update > hide.) I'll then install the important/critical updates first. My personal procedure is to select perhaps 10 updates at a time, install them, then run the computer to see if there are any problems or errors. If there are no problems I'll install the next group of 10. If there are issues I'll know exactly which group of 10 is involved. I can uninstall all 10 then reinstall one at a time. They'll either install correctly or I'll know which is the problem update.


After installing the important/critical updates I'll move on to the recommended updates and then the optional ones. I'll use the same technique (10 at a time.) This has always worked for me. Here are two Microsoft articles that explain how to install updates in Windows 7 and what to do if an update won't install.


Install Windows updates in Windows 7

Unable to install updates in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2