Installing Win7 from scratch, KB 3177467, KB 3020369 and KB 3172605

An update from ch100 (I hope I got the details right this time!):

When installing Win7 from scratch, if you install updates as they appear via Windows Update, you will not see the Servicing Stack updates KB3020369 and/or KB3177467 for a reason that is not so easy to understand.

Knowledge Base articles will tell you that certain patches – for example, KB3172605 – depend on one of those two patches. There are other important patches that depend on KB3020369 and/or KB3177467. Because those patches are old, the documentation may say that they depend on KB3020369.

KB 3020369 – although it’s still a valid patch – has been superseded by KB3177467.

You would think that KB3020369 and/or KB3177467 would be offered early in the list of available updates, but they aren’t.

KB3177467 has built-in logic so it won’t install if there are any other patches available. So the user has to install all 200+ patches before being offered KB3177467 and only after that will the user be offered the vital July 2016 rollup patch KB3172605.

The slow scan issue has been fixed temporarily by expiring superseded updates, but you really need KB3172605 to keep the slowdown at bay. Not everyone understands the supersedence issue, although I’ve been talking about it for a year.

KB3020369 was causing issues because it was not installed stand-alone. You documented this at the time on InfoWorld.

KB3020369 would be offered only if KB3177467 did not exist or it was hidden by the user. The user cannot hide it though, because it does not appear in the Windows Update list early in the upgrade cycle.

It’s an issue with the order of the installation.

My recommendation is to install these updates, manually, in the order they were released, before you go ahead with the full Windows Update scan:

KB2533552 (prevents a bug in the installer) https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2533552/an-update-that-prevents-a-0xc0000034-error-message-when-you-try-to-install-windows-7-sp1,-windows-server-2008-r2-sp1,-or-windows-embedded-standard-7-sp1-is-available

KB3177467 (Servicing Stack update) https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3177467/servicing-stack-update-for-windows-7-sp1-and-windows-server-2008-r2-sp1-september-20,-2016

KB3172605 (July 2016 Monthly Rollup) https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3172605/july-2016-update-rollup-for-windows-7-sp1-and-windows-server-2008-r2-sp1

See KB3200747 for official (partial) confirmation of Canadian Tech’s speedup method. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3200747/windows-update-is-taking-an-unusually-long-time-to-scan-and-install-updates

A lot of people were expecting KB3172605 to appear early in the Windows Update list in the list and, when it didn’t appear, believed that it was superseded. That’s not true. It is just not offered until one of the pre-requisite Servicing Stack updates is installed. I asked this question on MDL at that time when I was confused and abbodi answered that KB3172605 is not superseded which is absolutely correct.

Those who have been keeping up with their patches won’t hit these problems. But anybody installing from scratch should consider installing all of those manually, in that order.

It wouldn’t hurt to install IE 11 manually, too, right up front. You’ll avoid a lot of unnecessary patches that way.