Windows Update - Reset

Hello - my first post so please pardon any breaches of protocol! So successful was your Option 3 on my super swish PC that when an elderly friend asked me to look at her not-so-swish laptop which seemed to be suffering the same problems I agreed.

In fact I decided to do a clean install on the machine (Dell Inspiron running Windows 7 Home Premium) as it had been maintenance-less for many years and was somewhat clogged with un-needed clutter. The ReInstall from OEM disc went fine. Updates started well until after the SP.1 update and the subsequent download of the Windows Update Agent which follows. Then the ubiquitous "Checking for Updates" endless loop and 100% CPU hog. I have encountered endless cases of this precise sequence of events on pretty well every forum and help-site.

Undaunted I ran the Option 3. (In fact I have run it a number of times!) The bat file runs but "stalls" usually after sucessfully deleting the qmgr0.dat and qmgr1.dat files but sometimes after the next line where it returns the "Software Distribution Store.bak DATSTR~1 - The directory is not empty". There is a long pause and finally an Access Denied message followed by a "Could not acces the file as it is in use by another process" The .bat file then proceeds smoothly to completion. I would send you a snip-cap but not sure how to cap the dos screen before it closes?

I am guessing that the Option 3 that worked so well for me previously is not doing everything that it should here. Advice would be much appreciated. This is particularly troublesome after a reinstall - not just the CPU hog but the inability to install some 200 or so updates.

Do you ever sleep? lol

I have updates set for "install updates automatically". Checked "give me recommended updates the same way as important updates". It's just that I can't ask updates to do a check and therefore can't get optional updates.

Do you have a link to this? "It wouldn't hurt to try the "Resolve problems that prevent you from updating Windows" fix it."

So generally I seem to be sool in getting this fixed?

Many thanks Callender and Brink, for your suggestions. I had in fact picked up the other thread on the site regarding a clean install of Windows 7 involving the Manual install of Service Pack 1 and an immediate Manual install of the latest Update Client. If you are on Home Premium it seems you can't update to SP1 manually with IE8 and you can't update IE8 to IE11 without SP1 so, unless I'm being very foolish, you will need to install another browser before you start. Once you have done all this,Windows Update will find about 230 updates and seems happy to download and install the lot without need for restart until the end - so you can leave it overnight - took about 8 hours on an oldish Inspiron. Not wishing to lose this much progress I set a Resore Point here. There were none of the issues associated with this thread.

Then I hit problems. Update now finds a further 10 updates, downloads them but fails to install them. Wuauserv goes back into 100% CPU hogging mode. Running Option 3 encountered an Acess denied glitch half way through as described above but after a reboot the downloaded files which failed to install had disappeared. I set Check for Updates and 24 hours later we were no further on so I concluded we were back to the problems being encountered on this thread rather than the re-install thread. I gather Microsoft have now even abandoned the tool which didn't fix it! Disgraceful. Before embarking upon Callender's excellent (but daunting for those of us with a congenital dread of the command prompt) suggestion of running Option 3 line by line, I ran a Belarc scan which indicated I was actually only lacking one critical and seven important updates. I installed all but three of these manually, one at a time with a restart between each - two of them have known installation issues but a switch of browser resolved that problem (God knows why). I also set a restore point after each install. I then ran Option 3 again. Set Check for updates ovenight and it found and downloaded seven updates which installed without problem. From that point WU has worked as it should, has downloaded and installed a further twenty or so updates in stages and in timely fashion and is now displaying the 'Windows is up to date' legend.

Not much science involved in the above but if anyone is having the same problems then after ten days of arsing around with this, as I have, then you will probably be glad to try anything that worked for anyone.

Thanks again to the site contributors - lost without you on this.

Hello ThrashZone, thanks for your input. I did try to obtain a SP1 iso version from microsoft using the Dell factory installation Key and the Re-install disc Key but my requests were rejected, presumably because this was originally an OEM installation. I was unaware that there was any other way of obtaining a legitimate copy. If there is then I would welcome your advice on obtaining one - in case this happens again! Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, English (UK).

Thanks.