Laptop reinstalling all updates and creating odd folders

[Waterish]

Hi

I've recently been having some trouble with Windows Update in that it seems to be reinstalling every update ever released for Windows 7, in batches. Every time I go to shut down my laptop there are about 7 or so updates waiting to be installed. At first I just thought these were normal updates, but then I noticed it was reinstalling the Windows 7 Service Pack 1, which I definitely already have. Last night it was doing updates from September 2013, which I also definitely have.

Additionally, Windows is now creating tons of folders on my external hard drive with random strings of numbers and letters for folder names. Every time I boot up my laptop after installing updates, there are more of these folders, so I suspect the two things are linked. It's becoming very annoying because my external drive is becoming filled up with these folders. They all seem to be empty, but I'm worried that it may not be safe to delete them.

Does anyone have any idea how I might fix these problems? Last week my laptop failed to start up properly and told me that it couldn't fix the problem, and that it had to shut down. I shut it off, left it for a while, then when I started it up again it loaded Windows with no problems. I thought that was the end of it, but it may have something to do with the problems I'm now having.

I'm not getting any error codes with Windows Update and it's not saying any of the updates failed to install either.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Kaktussoft]

Use "windows updates" and do "search for updates". Install all the updates you want. Reboot and do it again. New updates popup? if so... repeat until all updates have been installed.

Sure the updates install succesfully? Most likely the folders on external disk are just temp folders. Because they are empty .. you can delete them without issues. Be sure to delete them after the patches have been installed.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Last week my laptop failed to start up properly and told me that it couldn't fix the problem, and that it had to shut down.

Do you have more details about WHAT PROBLEM it couldn't fix? Don't know what it did fix... but it did something... system works.

 

[Waterish]

Use "windows updates" and do "search for updates". Install all the updates you want. Reboot and do it again. New updates popup? if so... repeat until all updates have been installed.

Sure the updates install succesfully? Most likely the folders on external disk are just temp folders. Because they are empty .. you can delete them without issues. Be sure to delete them after the patches have been installed.

Thank you for your advice. I've been trying that over the last few days and it keeps finding more updates, mainly because it is re-installing updates that I know I've already downloaded before, such as Service Pack 1. I wouldn't have thought it would need to download and install them again. For example, right now it's telling me there are a load of .NET updates ranging from June 2013 to February 2014. I always have automatic updates turned on and I know these updates would have been installed when they were released.

Unfortunately I don't know what caused the problem. I restarted my laptop due to an unrelated issue, then before Windows loaded it came up with a message saying Windows failed to load and it was trying to fix the problem. It then said it couldn't fix the issue and I needed to turn off my computer and contact my system administrator. I don't remember it telling me any specific error code, just that Windows couldn't start :/

 

[Kaktussoft]

But all patches install without errors now? It's not reinstalling the same patches over and over again?

 

[Waterish]

According to the update history, most have been successful (although a few have failed). Looking through, it seems to be the .NET ones that have failed.

However, before this last batch failed it was still trying to install old updates that I installed ages ago.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Keep updating, reboot, updating. It takes a lot of time, but in the end all is fine. Report back when done.

 

[NoelDP]

Pleasefollow the WindowsUpdate Posting Instructions and post the requested data
If the file is too large (8MBcompressed), remove the older CBSPersist cab files until the final file isbelow the limit - you can always post them separately after zipping them. (theforum doesn't allow the upload of bare CAB files, for a number of reasons)