Fresh install, Win Update issue

[NC37]

Ok so I'm whipping some parts together to build a starter PC for nephews. Ran into a snag. It can use browsers like IE and Firefox just fine. I can download just fine and such. However, Windows Update just sits there forever on "checking for updates."

This is with a fresh install of Windows 7.

Now the board originally came from an old Gateway I parted out. It was a Vista machine. This is the board: http://www.ascendtech.us/intel-d945gcfg1-viiv-lga775-motherboard_i_mbintvid95gcfg1.aspx

It has 3GB RAM right now. I've also dropped in a C2D E6700, upgrading it from it's original E4300. Then I dumped in a 750Ti for GPU.

Support under 7 is there but yeah the drivers are often old. Heck I tried loading Windows 10 on and it does work with the exception of Windows Update not working in it either. In fact under 10 it quickly says it cannot communicate with the microsoft servers vs 7 which just sits there.

Now I do have an old Vista install DVD around. I could drop it back to that and see what happens, but I'd like to avoid that. I already know 7 and 10 don't want to communicate with M$ and that it refuses to do so even after fresh install.

Could this be an issue with the board or ethernet? I don't have a spare card around to test but I'm beginning to wonder. Don't usually have issues like this with Windows Update.

 

[alucasa]

Do make sure the time is up to date. If year is way too off, Windows won't update.

 

[Ithanul]

Hmmm, definitely check time.

Have you tried pinging their servers?

I know mine takes a few minutes or longer to get updates at times.

 

[newtekie1]

Check time, and give it a reboot. But you likely will just have to wait. Installing all the updates for Win7 after a fresh install takes forever. It doesn't help that the Windows Update process is single threaded either. So it takes even longer on an older processor, or one that isn't very single threaded powerful.

I just installed Win7 on a new built for a client. It was only an Athlon 5350. I started Windows Update when I got to my office in the morning, and 8 hours later when I left it was still sitting at the "checking for updates" phase. When I got to work the next morning it had finally moved on to tell me there were 228 updates to install. You'll just have to wait, unfortunately.

 

[NC37]

You know what, I know the CMOS battery had to be changed and it's been finicky ever since. I didn't think about that causing an issue with the servers. Thanks I'll look into that!

 

[Laurijan]

I had several machines that searched for hours for the updates but they eventually came

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

I've just done this on several computers at work. There is a download from Microsoft that will help with the initial update after a fresh install! Give me a sec. and I'll find the name:

Windows6.1-KB3102810-x64.msu

I think if you just search for the KB3102810 part you will find it online somewhere. It's just slightly more than 3 MB in size. We waited over an hour with one of the processor cores pegged with nothing happening. This was on a fresh install of Win 7 64-bit SP1 and we were just trying to get the very first update (the one before the massive ~1 GB of updates)

I never saw a .msu before but it runs just like an executable. It will still take a few minutes after you have that patch installed for the update to run but you won't be waiting forever like before.

 

[Mussels]

time and date must be correct.

Then its just a waiting game - as it has to hash and verify what updates are valid and so on, it can take a very annoying long time to find the updates. I've seen it use 2GB+ of ram as well, on slower machines it takes even longer.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...dows-10-automatic-updates-and-spyware.218745/

^This thread is about windows 10, but the third party windows update tool works on win7 as well.

 

[Hood]

Yes, it helps a lot if your single-core performance is very high and Windows is booting from an SSD (a fast SSD is even better: I've noticed an improvement in Windows Update speed since installing an Intel 750 400GB NVMe drive as my boot). When I update Windows on an older system without an SSD, the process feels excruciatingly slow and painful, and makes me glad those days are (mostly) behind me.

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

If you really want to run into some strange / weird headaches, try installing Office 2013 onsite in a foreign country (in Italy now at a customer's site) using US keys. I kept telling the damn program managers we should just have them ship the server back here. Tried using a proxy add-in on Firefox to get a US IP address but eventually had to VPN in and get the image, find a quick freeware program to mount it, then go. There were a total of 3 systems this needed to be applied to.... but back to the issue at hand, it really does work that patch I posted about and nothing has been flagged on their network as far as any malware, etc.

Check some of the threads in other forums about that patch as well. You can see some of them had some badass hardware and they still sat overnight and even longer waiting for that first update. Run the .msu and about 10-15 min later all good.

Sorry to be so insistent, I'm usually just a lurker but I know this will help you.

 

[NC37]

Thanks I'll try that patch too.

 

[Red_Machine]

This is the problem I have with the ISOs I downloaded from Microsoft's TechNet service. If I install a fresh copy of Windows Vista SP2 or 7 SP1 from those ISOs, it will never find updates. BUT, if I use the old discs I burned years ago (Vista SP1 and 7 vanilla), then there's no problem at all. If you want, I could make you a 64bit ISO of either of those old discs.

 

[P4-630]

I have the same problem on my win7 laptop after reinstalling, searching updates took a very long time but in the end it did work.
Just let it search a few hours. The weird thing was, it filled up the C drive while just searching for updates, but you can do a disk clean-up afterwards.
I also tried this before the reinstall of windows 7:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91738-windows-update-reset.html
But there are more things you can try.

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

This is the problem I have with the ISOs I downloaded from Microsoft's TechNet service. If I install a fresh copy of Windows Vista SP2 or 7 SP1 from those ISOs, it will never find updates. BUT, if I use the old discs I burned years ago (Vista SP1 and 7 vanilla), then there's no problem at all. If you want, I could make you a 64bit ISO of either of those old discs.

Surprisingly, the 3 systems that I just had this issue with I was using the official retail Win 7 Professional SP1 DVD's.

Just for clarity sake, the first update should happen without needing that patch I posted about but it can be a very long waiting game. Some forums had people waiting for almost 20+ hrs. with their systems maxing out one of their cores. In my case, I did not have the luxury of letting the systems sit overnight... in fact I had a small horde of non-English speakers hovering around me, panicked that their systems might be down for more than a day.