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#1
Windows 7 Starter Edition
My son received as a gift a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 laptop, with pre-inatalled Windows 7 Starter Edition (according the My Computer Properties).
I think he answered a kind of No to a security question (maybe related to Windows Firewall), because now he has an annoyng problem.
He tries to make Windows Updates; number of important updates were already made, but the last 49 updates are in status of downloading; I'd say "perpetual downloading". For example now the system reports 49 important updates of 443 MB; from two days ago (more than 48 hours) were downloaded of this amount only 1%. So, I think the downloading is "working", but extremely slow.
Some notes: Windows Updates are enabled and set as automatic. All other kind of downloading are working very well; for example, I downloaded Avast Personal Edition (53 MB) at 1.2 MB/sec, Adobe Acrobat Reader (45 MB) at 976 KB/sec, so there are no problems with my connection or downloading - generally speaking.
My son tells me that at the beginning (6-7 days ago), when he received his gift, updates were downloading... reasonnably (as he can remember), he didn't notice anything strange.
Now, I am a specialist in informatics (programming, using, trainings), I work in this area from more than 35 years ago. But I'm not a specialist in configuring operating systems like Windows 7. I tried to see settings under Windowsd Firewall which can imply such a behaviour: all downloading work fine, excepting downloading in Windows Updates. But... many of settings I don't understand (of this point of view I think Windows Vista and Windows 7 are "double-troublers". Too much security settings can be counter-productive). I even turned off the Windows Firewalls - with no effect (and then I turned them on).
You realize I am angry with this situation. I've downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), which I use on my desktop and I am very satisfied of it; downloading the program was OK (somewhere at 1 MB/sec); but after installing, the first update was... not finished yet. So I've downloaded Avast Personal Edition, which updates automatically without any problem of downloading speed. I've uninstalled MSE.
So, it seems that only downloadings for Windows Updates (signatures for MSE are Windows Updates, too).
Maybe - I hope so very much - there is someone which knows what the hell happened to Windows Updates on my son's Dell Inspiron Mini 10.
TIA,
John