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#1
Win7 Update downloads stuck at 0% for extended periods of time
After reading all the suggestions on the "Windows Update Posting Instructions" - and having done them - I still have this issue.
Issue:
When selecting one or more updates to download, the "Downloading Updates" counter remains stuck at 0% for extended periods of time, where "extended" can be measured in multiples of hours.
I have several clients with a number of Win7 systems, both Home Premium and Professional. I, myself, also have a number of machines of both types. Many of these machines are very minimalist installs, being used in a business environment where only the bare necessities are installed. (As opposed to systems that have everything but the kitchen sink, 20 or 30 tool-bars, and God Himself Only Knows what else.)
I have also tried this on bare-metal installs.
Broadband speeds are no less than 20/5 mbit. All systems hard-wired to the network, no wireless used or enabled.
It does not appear to matter if I am downloading one, or 500 updates.
I have tried the various tools, like the Update Readiness tool, the error checker, etc. In each case, the amount of time spent at the "Downloading" screen is absolutely unacceptable.
What puzzles me is the seeming universality of all these systems. Regardless of the system spec, the bitness (32 or 64), the amount of memory installed, the type of processor, the version of Win 7, AV, Firewall, etc. etc. etc.
I could understand it if it were only those systems with tons of cruft running in the background, or systems with wind-up tinker-toy processors running at 66 mHz. Many of these systems are multiple-core systems, (Core2 or better), running at 3gHz+ with 8 + gigs RAM, reasonably well up-to-date.
There are times when I am convinced that Microsoft's update servers are running on 14.4k dial-up connections using 8-bit Atari systems for their file servers.
Obviously not true, but I seem to be missing some fundamental thing here with each of these systems. This is taking so much time on so many systems that I don't want to update simply because it takes too long.
Sigh. . . .
Any thoughts on what I might have missed?
Jim (JR)