It's time for Microsoft to fix the Windows 7 update slowdowns

We had the combination long search time/download issue on both of our w7 64bit Pro laptops. The desktop machines were not affected. One is a completely clean install and the other an OEM Lenovo. Our desktop machines were not affected. The problem surfaced with the machines maxing out the CPUs and using an inordinate amount of memory. The CPUs would fall back to 50% and stay there. Temperatures were abnormally high.

How to fix it? Well, I did all of the Microsoft things first. Then I found an article with a script (wsusofflineupdate.net) that actually is an offline updater - it does work once you install it. Having cleared the Update list by running various Fixits I was confronted with a huge number of Updates, including the dreaded W10 offer. I had installed Never10, btw. After culling the updates 1 by 1 I completed updating, including Windows Defender.

Today, I was able to run a normal check for updates from Startup. This was not the case during the incident as that is when everything went wrong in the background. The initial solution I used was to fully disable Windows Update and watch CPU usage return to 0 and normal/minimal memory usage.

In the opinion of others this is yet another attempt by Microsoft to try to force Window 10 on us. Having run it on a test machine, i would not use it as currently offered. The Windows 7 interface is just fine for the needs of most users. It is true that W10 is a bit faster, but so what.
Fact is - someone fixed the problem on Sunday and we should be fine until the next time MS screws with updates. One can either run the updater on startup or fully disable it until needed - that is your choice.

-30-

Found this while doing a search & hopefully it helps some folks out.

4 Tools to Update Windows Offline and install Hotfixes from a Local Source

https://www.raymond.cc/blog/offline-windows-update/

Going to try one or 2 of these today since Win 7 32 has been trying to d/l the defs for Defender for 2 hrs now. As for the 7 64 lappy, 3 days & still no results.

Yea I haven't noticed any windows defender updates offered
I do indeed have defender off why use it when I have Panda free
2 antivirus programs is 1 too many plus defender and MSE always load updates and scan slow as hell anyway.

ThrashZone said:

Yea I haven't noticed any windows defender updates offered
I do indeed have defender off why use it when I have Panda free
2 antivirus programs is 1 too many plus defender and MSE always load updates and scan slow as hell anyway.

Not that worried since I can always get the updates manually, but just another example of how the updates for 7 is being botched, either on purpose or just plain laziness.

I'm trying your suggestion now & I'll let you know in a few minutes if it worked.

Should work
I did have to get net 4.5.2 on my 32 bit machine before it did work
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/down....aspx?id=42642

ThrashZone said:

Should work
I did have to get net 4.5.2 on my 32 bit machine before it did work
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/down....aspx?id=42642

The problem I'm having is not just on the 7 32, but the 7 64 as well. Anything 7 just doesn't want to update well anymore.

I will note I have seen rare occasions where I go to check for updates & I get them within 5 or 10 mins. Like someone decided to throw a switch & open the door to the update section for 7. But those moments have faded to less & less instances as the months have gone by.

Hate to say it but from the looks of it, didn't do anything for me. Thank you for the suggestion though. Much appreciated.

Edit: I take that back Thrash. I just rebooted the machine for the 3rd time since applying your fix, checked the update history & launched the updater again & I'm seeing some d/l's presented now. Thank you, I believe that may have helped. This was on the 64 machine, I applied the patch but didn't change the net since it wasn't on the 32. Now I'll see how long it takes me to get the actual updates.

EDIT: Well, up to 66% in about 5 mins, so far, so good. Thanks again for the suggestion. Now well see what happens on my 32 OS machine when I try that next.

Looking at MSE def updates on my 64 machine, I see they successfully updated on April 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 & 12. They Failed on the 16th & the 8th.

Once the update system started getting freaky I decided to drop MSE
MSE has always had a large question mark why exactly I used it and well defender is even worse than defender imho

I never manually check for updates windows does that on delayed start
The exception was always on my 32 bit system which I rarely use pretty much just for banking twice a month so minimal online time I guess affects how well updates get found
I had thought it was ultimately an issue with the manufactures Vista oem key on the machine
Since I used Brink's bat or reg file to accept 7 retail upgrade keys instead full system builder.. activation keys.

I did reload Vista 32 sp2 on another ssd and did have to use the phone activation before it would activate
Then used the win-7 upgrade dvd and activated 7 with it.
So maybe that straightened out the mess too.
Although that install went to shit and I'm using the original win-7 sp1 ssd install I started with :/

Never boring :)

Borg 386 said:

ThrashZone said:

Yea I haven't noticed any windows defender updates offered
I do indeed have defender off why use it when I have Panda free
2 antivirus programs is 1 too many plus defender and MSE always load updates and scan slow as hell anyway.

Not that worried since I can always get the updates manually, but just another example of how the updates for 7 is being botched, either on purpose or just plain laziness...

Instead of it just being another pathetic attempt by Nutella and his cronies to "encourage" people go to Win 10, I'm wondering if the slow down problem may be due to MS possibly limiting the amount of bandwidth available for Win 7 and Win 8.1, causing bottlenecks when the updates first come out? I haven't had any of the huge slowdowns many people have been reporting but that may be because I wait until the weekend, after most people have already done their downloads (although they do seem a bit slower but I haven't been timing them since I just start the process, then ignore it until it is done).

ThrashZone said:

Never boring :)

Yeah, something odd happened on my machine right after I posted. After I checked the updates & clicked the d/l button it gave me a message saying most of the updates failed to install. I hadn't even d/l ed them yet. So I went back to the list, made sure everything was checked, went back, hit the d/l button & it started d/l ing them.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

I haven't had any of the huge slowdowns many people have been reporting but that may be because I wait until the weekend, after most people have already done their downloads (although they do seem a bit slower but I haven't been timing them since I just start the process, then ignore it until it is done).

Yeah, I've considered it could be the time you choose also. But when I got up @ 7 AM on Sun & tried to d/l them, same problem all the live long day. I've experimented with various times & it's basically turning into a crapshoot from what I see. This is the first time I've seen them take this long. I've seen them in the past take as long as 3 hours to finish d/l ing for my 7 OS's.

Myself, never had probs with 8.1 on the PC or my Wife's lappy. Think the longest delay I saw was 25 mins a couple months back.