Windows Update stuck on 0% after agent updated?

I just restored my laptop to factory defaults. It came with Windows 7 Home Premium SP1. So after it was restored and all sorted out, I chose Windows Update to install updates automatically, which it did fine. It installed two updates by itself and notified me I needed to restart.

After restarting I ran update check again and it came back with over 200 updates (expected), however I chose a couple of updates to install, like IE11 and Framework 4.something, set it going and... That's where it went tits ups. Got stuck on "downloading 0%" for at least an hour. In the end I stopped the update service. I had a look at the two updates it first installed. One was a security update I believe but the other was Windows Update Agent 7.6.7600.320. I've been googling and it seems I'mnot the first to encounter issues with this agent update, though I didn't get any errors, just the fact it seemed to be stuck on downloading but not doing anything.


I've now restored the laptop again, so I'm back to square one, only this time i turned auto update off. As far as i can tell that agent it installed is the latest version for 7sp1, can anyone suggest anything i could do to prevent the damn thing bugging out again?

am having the same issue with 2 computers as well, after installing service pack 1, i installed the update agent manually and installed it, 7.6.7600.320, have tried windows update troubleshooting tool, microsoft fix it, system file checker, chkdsk,, have posted in microsoft technet forum, have tried every fix out there, but nothing seem's to work, is there a hotfix for this, is microsoft aware of this issue, is there an honest working answer to this problem, am in need of desperate help..thank you...hoffdog37....

You know, I can't help but notice you have a Toshiba laptop as well. I have this issue on a satellite pro c660 which I believe is circa 2010 or there about. Do you have all of Toshiba's apps and drivers installed or are you suffering from this problem on a clean install? As I say mine is restored from the recovery partition so it still has Toshiba's crapware on it, though I've disabled/uninstalled most of it. I suspect there may be a conflict somewhere. It might be with Toshiba's crap but they do preinstall drivers for the graphics, sound, wireless etc. and since they're older than the Windows Update Agent that's required it might be one of them causing a conflict (for me at least). I shall continue to investigate.

Well never mind. I restored the laptop again, set WU to auto update and just left it. It installed the new agent by itself and asked after a restart I started the update check and opted to just leave it. Came back to it after an hour and it was working, so no idea why it wasn't before. Gremlins I guess. Either that or I just didn't leave it for long enough. No idea.