Monday, January 2, 2017

Fix Windows 7 Update issues

You may have read my Sept. 23 post describing how to install Windows 7 and update it, but what if you're working with a computer on which Windows 7 Update is simply broken? The procedure in that post -- which require installing specific updates manually -- may not work.

That happened to me this last weekend. The April 2015 Servicing Stack simply would not install, nor any other manual update. Then I found this article which describes how to clean up Windows Update on a Windows 7 system. It shows a script (a Windows batch file) which will clean out all the gunk. They even give you a link to download a .zip file containing the script.

I chose to follow Step 1, which involves opening Notepad, pasting in the code in the gray box, and saving it as a .bat file. It worked! Windows Updates could once again be manually installed. Note that I had already disabled automatic updates so they wouldn't block manual updates, as described in the Sept. 23 post, and as described by Microsoft here.

Then after a reboot, the "Check now" button in Windows Update works great! A few rounds of installing updates and rebooting, and the system is nearly up to date.

I hope these tips work for you ... and for me the next time I try them 😄
As usual, results are not guaranteed -- Anything you do to your computer is at your own risk, even if recommended by a well-meaning tech.

If these procedures seem daunting to you, call your favorite computer tech for assistance.