Windows Update Service Not Running

Hi,

Today the Windows Update service wasn't running on boot-up and didn't appear in Task Manager. I have no idea why as everything was fine last night and have never had this issue with WU before.
If I click "Check for Updates" I get a message saying "Window Updates could not check for updates because the service isn't running. You may need to restart you computer". I've tried restarting several times but WU still isn't running. I'm using a Dell Studio laptop with Windows 7 64 bit. Please help.

A lot of us had issues today, whereas it worked yesterday. I think some crypto certificate may have expired, either on Microsoft server end and/or they need to push an update to clients.

P.S. - a similar issue happened on my XP PCs as well. Changing the date back to Dec 2nd worked around the issue temporarily.

sup3rsprt said:

A lot of us had issues today, whereas it worked yesterday. I think some crypto certificate may have expired, either on Microsoft server end and/or they need to push an update to clients.

Indeed that's the issue, there is a file called authcab.cab on a folder called AuthCabs in the SoftwareDistribution folder. That file inside has a file called authorization.xml and has a line that has an expiration date of December 3, 2017. The line on that file is as follows:

<ExpiryDate>2017-12-03T11:59:25.5067616-08:00</ExpiryDate>

That caused all this mess with Windows Update or more like with Microsoft Update because if you uncheck getting updates for other Microsoft Products, Windows Update will search updates for Windows normally.

I guess that's the only workaround till Microsoft fixes the mess they have with Microsoft Update.

Nice research and find =)

Indeed I only had issues with "Microsoft Update". Once I disabled Microsoft Update, Windows Update worked.

I guess with Windows 10 their priority... who knows if this'll ever get fixed.

In any event, I often use the Windows Update Catalog to download patches manually. At least until Microsoft kills that too

sup3rsprt said:

Nice research and find =)

Indeed I only had issues with "Microsoft Update". Once I disabled Microsoft Update, Windows Update worked.

I guess with Windows 10 their priority... who knows if this'll ever get fixed.

In any event, I often use the Windows Update Catalog to download patches manually. At least until Microsoft kills that too

Thanks, but I can't take the credit for that investigation since I found it on another website. All the credit for the investigation goes to the owner of that site :)

Hey, I have to be fair and give the credit to the person who deserves it n.n

Easy solution.
1. Stop Windows update service
2. Delete Softwaredistribution folder
3. Start Windows update service

This fix this problem but you lose your update history.

Hi Nancy,

Unfortunately Yes. and thats why the scan is taking so long.

There is another fix posted on this forum, that didnt clear the SD folder.

Roy

Sorry, I guess I deleted my post after you read it....

Apparently the other updates were applied and just the history of what updates were done are gone, because it finally came back with current updates...same ones that my desktop say are available.

Thanks

Cmaker3 said:

The solution from Dell's Support website has only 4 steps:
1. Go to Administrative Tools/Services, and stop the Windows Update service.
2. Then go to the folder c: /Windows/SoftwareDistribution and delete all of the files and folders.
3. Then go back to Services and restart the Windows Update service which will recreate all of those folders again.
4. Then manually run the Update Service and everything should work.

Thanks! You are my hero!