Reinstalling Win7 fails due to 200 updates

Involute · 14 Nov 2015

The most recent batch of 28 Win7 x64 updates caused increasing instability of my 5 year old PC, ultimately necessitating a complete reinstallation of OS and, of course, apps. Given that my installation disk is 5 years old, the initial reinstallation led to an attempt to apply the ~200 updates that have been issued over that period. That went about as expected, necessitating a second reinstallation. This time I turned auto-update off, and have been trying to apply the updates 10 at a time, in numerical order. Aside from being time-consuming, the results feel unstable, with some updates failing and forcing Windows to rollback, only to reveal they're still applied after the next boot.

Is there a better way? If I bought a new copy of Win7 would it have most of these updates built in? Thanks for your help.

PS - I do a complete image backup every night via Acronis True Image 2016. I tried to get Acronis to restore everything, but my system (whether in Acronis' boot environment or Windows) is not recognizing the USB drive containing the images (naturally).

UsernameIssues · 14 Nov 2015

Maybe the steps in this post will help you:
Advice please on best way to install updates for Windows 7

wasnotwas · 15 Nov 2015

Involute said:

Is there a better way? If I bought a new copy of Win7 would it have most of these updates built in? Thanks for your help.

You're out of luck on that one. The last release of Windows 7 had SP1 and that was around 4 years ago, so 200+ updates is a fact of life.

If you are planning to upgrade to Windows 10, you only need to install + activate a genuine Windows 7 SP1 (without the 200 updates) - that qualifies for the W10 upgrade (I've tested this). The 'big if' is whether your 5 year old pc has the spec for W10.

Involute · 15 Nov 2015

UsernameIssues said:

Maybe the steps in this post will help you:
Advice please on best way to install updates for Windows 7

Yup, that did it. Thanks!

wben353 · 15 Nov 2015

Involute, check your PM (private message)

Just for info purposes. If you have 8 gig or RAM or less fresh install or repair install updates will fail at about 165 give or take a few. Out of RAM error. WU stores all the updates in RAM until verification is complete. If you click on task manager performance tab you can watch RAM load. I pick about 100 and most of them install. updates install in no particular order & some are prerequisite for others. SP1 is one of them.

Rich O · 16 Nov 2015

I did a fresh W7 install yesterday to replace W10 (I tried really hard to like it but...)
You can reduce the number of updates to 150 if you do the following.
On a separate machine download .Net 4.5.2 Offline Installer and IE11 and stick them on a USB stick.
Install W7 without internet connection (Offline)
Configure Updates to: Check before downloading... This prevents W10 upgrade stuff (More later)
Configure Power Settings to Allways on.
Install .Net 4.5.2 (from the USB download)
Install IE11 (from the USB download)
Go online to Activate and Check for Updates.
The MS update servers are really being hammered at the moment so go away and leave the machine for hours and hours (3-4)
Eventually you will be offered the Security Updates
.Net Updates
IE11 Updates
Perhaps a Driver Update
The Recommended Update category had a couple of CEIP/Telemetry Updates which needed hiding
Loads of non relevant Updates for my config (I checked them online, each an every one!)
I ended up only having to download 120-ish updates in all. (The download was very much quicker than the 'Check for Updates'.)
The most notable thing was I have had none of the W10 specific Updates which we have all had to hide, offered to me.

wben353 · 16 Nov 2015

You might want to check this out GWX Control Panel