Solved windows 7 update stuck at "checking for updates..."

[sleepless]

hi, windows 7 never seems to complete the update check. it just stays stuck at "checking for updates...". it will stay like this for days. most recent check for updates is listed as 7/9/2014 (almost 3 months ago). i tried the fix and the reset listed here:

windows 7 update stuck at checking for updates - Tech Support Forum

nothing has worked so far, please help.

 

[Tookeri]

See if there are any methods in this Tutorial you haven't tried: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91738-windows-update-reset.html

 

[Mayank Parmar]

is the computer booting in Safe Mode?
if Yes then run a disk cleanup

 

[sleepless]

See if there are any methods in this Tutorial you haven't tried: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91738-windows-update-reset.html

tried both resets, no change.

 

[sleepless]

is the computer booting in Safe Mode?
if Yes then run a disk cleanup

seems to be working after a run in safe mode. thanks all, for your time.

 

[Mayank Parmar]

Great!

 

[ohcomonletmein]

Yep it works, great advice! [disk cleanup]

 

[jigawatt]

One thing FINALLY worked - and I still don't know why

I also had the problem of getting stuck in "checking for updates". I searched online for hours and tried many proposed solutions - MULTIPLE reformatting and reinstalling of Windows using different hard drives, fiddling with registry keys, downloading and running BAT files, windows troubleshooter programs, prayer and fasting ...

I was just about to give up and get rid of the computer when I decided to try one last thing. I wired my computer to my modem with an ethernet cable instead of using my wifi adapter (Netgear AC1200). When I booted up - wonder of wonders, it immediately found all the updates and it downloaded and (eventually) installed over 200. I had had no problems getting onto the internet with the wifi adapter and it seems to still be working just fine on multiple machines for all sorts of other internet tasks.

Windows will never, ever make sense to me.

 

[Tramps]

jigawatt:
THANK YOU! I had the same problem - when I tried to get a list of Windows 7 updates on my Acer netbook PC with a wireless internet connection, it just sat there for hours without providing the list of updates. But then I tried your suggestion of directly connecting your computer to an Ethernet cable (rather than wireless). It worked like a charm!

I took the Ethernet cable from my modem, disconnected it from my desktop (iMac), and reconnected it to my netbook. Immediately a list of over 100 updates appeared, and I was successful in downloading all of them. Your suggestion is the simplest of the suggested fixes. Thank you again!!

 

[schmintan]

using a brand new fresh install of win 7 sp 1 64bit.

Ive tried all advice so far but windows update still wont work, same symptom as above, no errors, just stays on "checking for updates" for hours. ive tried:

-microsoft fix tools, the quick fixes to quickly sort out smaller issues.
-plugging into ethernet & using that instead of wireless.
-disabling antivirus and firewall.

Running fiddler i can see that no traffic seems to be generated when i kick off windows update, although im not sure why.

 

[UsernameIssues]

...stays on "checking for updates" for hours.

Set the computer not to sleep.
Then install the latest Windows Update Client for November 2015 as mentioned in this post:
http://www.sevenforums.com/windows-updates-activation/385734-update-issues.html#post3177298
The checking for updates might still take hours - just let it sit 24+ hours.

 

[Jake1702]

using a brand new fresh install of win 7 sp 1 64bit.

Ive tried all advice so far but windows update still wont work, same symptom as above, no errors, just stays on "checking for updates" for hours. ive tried:

-microsoft fix tools, the quick fixes to quickly sort out smaller issues.
-plugging into ethernet & using that instead of wireless.
-disabling antivirus and firewall.

Running fiddler i can see that no traffic seems to be generated when i kick off windows update, although im not sure why.

Recently I've been having this problem too. I usually have updates disabled because they take around 5 hours to complete but I've been having a lot of other problems recently and thought some updates might help fix the issues. However, the thing that is supposed to fix the problem IS another problem. I decided to try with Fiddler myself after reading this, but as you can see traffic is generated for me.

Another problem I realized is that the "svchost.exe" process uses over 1 GB of RAM while checking for updates. I know it is that because if I end the process, Windows Update stops, and if I close Windows Update, RAM usage goes down.

I'm going to try everything in Safe Mode, to see if it might be a process in Windows that is causing it.

 

[rfleming]

Jake, Make sure Background Intelligence service is running. That was my issue on a new install. It needs to be set to "Delay Start" in the service properties.

 

[kodenkoden]

same problem.. laptop, new win 7 installation.
Starts windows update from programs.

checking for updates many hours...

Shut down laptop and it tells me

"windows installing 159 updates......"

So even if you can't see it it is installing updates.

 

[rfleming]

The link below is how I fixed my Windows Updater. I did install the latest Internet Explorer before I did this. Mine was a new OS install.
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-update-not-working

 

[sbedding]

If you have followed the suggestions made by UserNameIssues in a similar thread here and Windows Update still seems to be stuck, make sure that all mscorsvw.exe processes have finished and exited before you assume Windows Update is well and truly stuck. In my case, Windows Update apparently would not proceed until these processes had completed.

FYI: mscorsvw.exe processes are .Net optimization processes. Sort of like precompilers for .Net programs. They launch automatically whenever an update to any .Net module is installed. They usually run quietly in the background, but in this case, may introduce a noticeable delay with the Windows Update process. Here is a good article that explains what they do, why they exist, and possible actions to "hurry things along", so to speak.

DISCLAIMER: I am not sure this is related to the Windows Update problem, since it is only empirical data from a sample size of two systems, but it is coincidental enough to suggest a correlation between the two.

 

[AddRAM]

I just left it on overnight and in the morning all the updates were there ready to go.

 

[sbedding]

Well, it turns out that there IS NO correlation between this issue and mscorsvw.exe after all, so my earlier post is pretty worthless.

I was hoping that I had found something that we could actually see that could be used as an indicator to tell us whether things were actually stuck, or just taking a while. Unfortunately, it was just a coincidence.

 

[Howy]

Windows 7 SP1 64bit

I've recently had to fix a computer by deleting all partitions and starting from scratch.
It's a genuine and activated system but, the problem is with all the updates, even Microsoft Security Essentials won't update.
After a long search I've been able to fix the problem by running a fix from the MS site.
There are two of them, the latest download (12 Feb 2016) is:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3138612
which worked fine for me.
The earlier version (20 Oct 2015) is:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3102810
which I didn't bother with as the latest version corrected ALL the update problems.
Hope this helps someone.

 

[chriz74]

hi, windows 7 never seems to complete the update check. it just stays stuck at "checking for updates...". it will stay like this for days. most recent check for updates is listed as 7/9/2014 (almost 3 months ago). i tried the fix and the reset listed here:

windows 7 update stuck at checking for updates - Tech Support Forum

nothing has worked so far, please help.

same situation here after fresh install, the only way that worked was through wsusoffline WSUS Offline Update - Update Microsoft Windows and Office without an Internet connection