Safe To Install All Windows Updates?

profdlp · 30 Nov 2018

Skipping over the details, but a while back it became necessary for me to do a reinstall of Windows. Since then I have had a bunch of old Windows Updates in the "recommended" and/or "optional" category sitting there which I was initially afraid to run because I am trying to avoid W10.

I know that the free "upgrade" to W10 period has long since passed. Is it safe for me to go ahead and install all the old updates? During that miserable year or so that MS was pushing W10 I looked up literally every single update before allowing it to be installed. I kept a list of the W10 related ones and at one point I think that list was about fifteen updates long. When I did the reinstall of W7 I did not want to look up every single one of over fifty updates so I have just left them uninstalled. I did do all the Critical updates and any I could identify as not being W10 related.

Am I safe in shooting the moon and going ahead and installing all the rest of the updates, with no risk of having W10 suddenly sitting there waiting to be installed?

Thanks!

lolnothankyou · 30 Nov 2018

Do not install the optional updates (it's a waste of HDD/SSD space) and be very careful when installing the so called "security" updates.

Personally I wouldn't install any update released after 2015.

Nelson35 · 01 Dec 2018

lolnothankyou said:

Do not install the optional updates (it's a waste of HDD/SSD space) and be very careful when installing the so called "security" updates.

Personally I wouldn't install any update released after 2015.

Wow, even the malicious software removal tools?

lolnothankyou · 01 Dec 2018

Malicious Software Removal Tool includes spyware (Heartbeat telemetry reports) so I don't have it installed on my system. Needless to say I don't download the MSRT updates either.

Ranger4 · 01 Dec 2018

I install all the Updates & I always have & never had a problem. Some seem to get paranoid about MS stealing your computer info, but that has been the case for years. The W 10 fiasco has long gone & no longer a problem.

profdlp · 06 Dec 2018

Thanks, everyone. I went through and installed all the old ones (pre W10 nonsense), then did a half dozen at a time while paying attention to the "baddie" list. It turned out there were four updates I left alone.

Thanks for all the response!

mrjimphelps · 06 Dec 2018

I personally believe that you can safely install all "important" Windows 7 updates if you are not a corporate computer user. Those in the corporate world need to be more careful when installing Windows updates, because sometimes corporations have specialty items or programs that might get bit by a rogue update.

For example, not too many home users have dot matrix printers, but lots of corporations do. Several months ago a Windows update was released which caused certain dot matrix printers to quit working.

A case I personally observed years ago was in a company that I worked for. They had a specialty accounting program which was extremely old, and which had been patched and patched and patched in order to keep it up to date. We came to work one morning and found that the accounting program wasn't working. I uninstalled the three Windows updates that had been auto-installed early that morning, and that computer could now access the accounting program. So I went to every computer, uninstalled those three updates, then hid them from the updates list. No home user will ever have such an ancient and repeatedly patched accounting program on their home computer; home users will have off-the-shelf, up-to-date, industry-standard retail software on their computer; therefore, no home user likely got affected in any way by those particular Windows updates.

Lady Fitzgerald · 06 Dec 2018

After having to restore to an earlier date several times after installing MS updates this year essentially broke my computers, I got fed up and won't install any updates past December, 2017.

It's not just Win 7 either; Win 10 has been plagued with numerous bad updates lately.

skuddle · 15 Dec 2018

I just did a recovery operation from some DVDs I bought from Toshiba for my laptop. After the laptop "recovered" I started the update process. There were 170 updates, and all installed correctly except for five. Then the next few mornings when I turned the laptop on there were some more updates to be installed. I managed to get those newer ones installed, and they included the most recent ones (Oct, Nov, Dec security updates). I was also able to install 3 of the 5 earlier ones that failed. The other two still failed though.

Paul Black · 15 Dec 2018

Hi profdlp,

profdlp said:

Skipping over the details, but a while back it became necessary for me to do a reinstall of Windows. Since then I have had a bunch of old Windows Updates in the "recommended" and/or "optional" category sitting there which I was initially afraid to run because I am trying to avoid W10.

During that miserable year or so that MS was pushing W10 I looked up literally every single update before allowing it to be installed. I kept a list of the W10 related ones and at one point I think that list was about fifteen updates long. When I did the reinstall of W7 I did not want to look up every single one of over fifty updates so I have just left them uninstalled. I did do all the Critical updates and any I could identify as not being W10 related.

I used to do the whole M$ WU download and install on a regular basis. The problem with doing it that way [I found] is the amount of time needed to download and install all the updates, not to mention the numerous restarts required. I did like you did, I kept a list of possible W10 telemetry updates in which to avoid like the plague!

I then found a much quicker and easier way to achieve this was to use DISM++ [you have probably seen the posts]!

DISM++ is a FREE implementation tool that has the ability to perform Windows Updates [WU]. Some of the advantages [but not all] are:

[1] The GUI is very easy to understand and use.
[2] It is much faster than M$’s WU because it uses a different engine.
[3] It downloads the latest WU DB from the M$ servers, scans your OS, and then lists the updates available.
[4] It doesn’t install superseded updates like M$ does.
[5] It gives you the option of what you want to install.
[6] The pre-ticked updates are what is recommended and are similar to the WU critical and recommended updates. The un-ticked updates are similar to the WU optional updates.

[7] It warns you if an update:

Includes telemetry.
Has known issues with certain hardware.
Needs exclusive access.
Is suspect.
Your OS doesn't need it.
Has any other known issues.

[8] It doesn’t require re-booting between updates.
[9] It can be used to either update an install.wim image OFFLINE, or to update the LIVE OS.

I know that you have already updated your OS but I thought I would mention it just in case the situation ever arises again in the future when you need to do clean install again!