Reminder: We’re still at MS-DEFCON 2 – don’t install anything

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It’s easy to get confused. I’ll be talking about ways to speed up Windows Update, but I’m NOT actually recommending that you install the latest crop o
[See the full post at: Reminder: We’re still at MS-DEFCON 2 – don’t install anything]

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I understand you don’t recommend installing the latest crop of patches, but what about KB3161664? Is that ok to install? I left my laptop searching overnight and in about 10 hours searching hasn’t stopped.

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I’ve downloaded and installed KB3161664 manually and then started Windows Update which delivered its available updates in 3 minutes. I didn’t install any of those updates, only as I said, KB3161664. It seems to be OK but reading Woody’s article title “Reminder: We’re still at MS-DEFCON 2 – don’t install anything” not sure I was right to install that KB3161664 … I’ll remove it if it appears to be another Microsoft approximation.

Are you, is anyone running Windows Updates quickly (<5 minutes) without having installed this KB3161664 patch?

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Am I the only one this has happened to? Today I wanted to shut down for a completely unrelated reason to Windows. When I clicked on the “Power” link the message that came up said, “Update and shut down”! The only other choice was “Update and restart”. I’m using Windows 10 but also wushowhide. Not trusting Mickeysoft I’m not doing anything now. Any help?

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On my Win8.1 x64 home edition, the updater ran <5 minutes.

3161664 is listed & uninstalled.

The undater has been checking in the background since it was set back to "check but let me choose whether to install" on May 30 when we went back to DEFCON 3.

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Those who are patched up to date or very close to it, will likely not experience slow updates, unless the PC has a different problem.
If Windows Update is slow and relatively up to date with patches (at least ALL Important up to May 2016), it may be worth running sfc /scannow from a cmd As Administrator or even CheckSUR https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20858
CheckSUR is not a patch, although it appears like one. It is an in depth system checking tool which fixes many Windows Update related problems.

I am currently re-evaluating the Convenience Rollup KB3125574 and after reading the documentation, I think that there may be advantages in installing it, even on a fully patched system. While I have it installed now, it is still early to draw a conclusion, but according to the published documentation, it may contain useful additional hotfixes not pushed through Windows Update.

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OK- I had installed KB3161664 quasi blindly assuming it would appear as essential to a normal WU speed as last month’s similar patches had performed.

Aron mentioned an interesting link an another askwoody page dedicated to KB3161664 (https://www.askwoody.com/2016/win7-users-install-kb-3161664-to-speed-up-windows-update-scans/comment-page-1/#comments) pointing to : http://wu.krelay.de/en/).

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Only WIN7 (and Vista SP2) users should manually download & install the KB3161664 update to speed up Windows Update search scans (and remove KB3153199). This does not concern Win8, Win8.1 or Win10 users as those versions have newer WUC apps and are not really affected.

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@ch100,

“Those who are patched up to date or very close to it, will likely not experience slow updates, unless the PC has a different problem.”

That’s just NOT the case. My W7 SP1 x64 Quad Core i7 is very close to completely up to date. All month before the June updates were released, and after May’s KB 3153199 was installed, auto check for updates took less than 2 minutes every morning. The day June’s updates were offered to my machine (this morning) the auto update took 1 hour and a number of minutes. And there are any number of people who have posted here today that have found themselves back in the long check for updates after last month’s 3199 had solved their problem. So you’re statement is just not accurate.

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@louis
I think you are right. It seems to be random behaviour with little consistency, now it is back to quick for me, although it took between one hour and two hours at some stage.
As I researched Office patching not long ago, could you please let me know if your scans are against Windows Update or Microsoft Update? If the latter, are the other Microsoft products patched to date as well? I am trying to find a correlation between slow updates and other Microsoft products patching which can have an influence over the whole process.
If scanning only against Windows Update, then ignore my request as there are no other products involved.
Thanks.

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Dear EP
I have managed to get kb3161664 installed. Reading your post should I now uninstall kb3153199 or leave it as it is.
Thank you
Jackie

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Interesting that Susan Bradley in Windows Secrets has already given green light to all June patches including Office patches, less the one which was mentioned in another post and which related to Group Policy issues https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3159398
I have them all installed and working, however I don’t use non-recommended configurations and I normally don’t experience issues even with the worst patches.

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If I’m not updating until the all-clear, is there any reason for me to do the interim speedups?
Thanks, Morty

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Nope.

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Win 7 Pro w/ patches up-to-date as of May, 2016. Was unable to get list of updates.

DISABLED Windows Update!!

Cleared out Software Distribution folder again.
Put Windows Update service back to Automatic-Delayed Start.
Ran CheckSUR.exe again. Ran for 9 minutes. “installation complete” but no updates identified.
Ran WindowsUpdate – took 93 minutes to identify updates which included 3 “important” for Win 10 readiness and 1 “optional” which was to download Win 10 and which was selected by default!! Hid the Win 10 related updated and initiated download

Download stuck in 0% downloaded; an SVChost.exe instance is @ 25%.

Checked processes related to that instance of SVChost and found

AeLookupSvc Application Experience
Appinfo Application Experience
Browser Computer browser

Found BITS Background Intelligent Transfer Service stopped.

Started BITS

Download still stuck @ 0%

Stopped download; clicked “try again”.

Download stuck @ 0%

Conspiracy theory: Microsoft is doing this intentionally to get Win 7 users to go to Win 10!! (But one shouldn’t attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by incompetence)

May be a good thing downloads didn’t come down given advice not to install any. I jumped the gun trying to do updates before seeing the advice not to.

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If you want it to finish (just to check what it is offering) start the check, note high CPU, wait 1-15 hours. Note also that if you are set to “never check” the results will be lost when you close the window.

It wouldn’t take near as long if the CPU wasn’t tied up busy waiting.

windows(update): “how much timer precision do we have?”

HPET subsystem: “about 7,550,652 ticks per second, this won’t change if you ask again, only if you reboot, don’t ask again”

windows(update): “Ok I’ll 9.6 million more times per hour, and they after that we will finish calculating the supersedence and get on with processing windows updates.”

I personally traced this bug using free performance profiling tools and debugging symbols provided by Microsoft. It took me less than 6 hours to get set up from scratch and get the results. That includes finding that the tool even exists and learning how to use it. microsoft WROTE the tool and has the source code to the offending software. They also say not to do what they are doing.

Windows 8.x and windows 10 may even have the same bug, but different available updates cause lesser symptoms.

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Does this apply for June patches only? Is it safe so install March, April and May’s updates? I installed Win7 and had a lot of updates to install (200 or so). I am left with the above mentioned + KB971033 which is the only one unchecked and I don’t know if to install or not. I installed Win7 from an oem manfuacturer’s upgrade disk, installed it on top of Vista which came pre-installed on my laptop. Thank you

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If you only have a couple of patches to install, wait until MS-DEFCON 3. There’s nothing pressing.

If you still have 200 to install, yeah, then you should slug it out.

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I had about 200, I installed most, now I have about 20 updates + KB971033 which I don’t know whether I should install or not.

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I’d say wait. You’re close enough to caught-up, and there are no screaming security holes right now – as long as you don’t use IE or Edge.

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I just got my notice earlier today on Windows 10 that my Patch Tuesday Patches — cumulative update + others? — have arrived and want to be installed.

IIRC, they give me up to a week to install (maybe 4-7 days max). Is your rhythm for going to DefCon 3 looking like it will be by the end of the week?

I have been put into the situation where the update hijacks the system and forces the CU and other stuff onto my system and I want to beat that to the punch.

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If you have Windows 10 set according to the instructions under the “Automatic Updates” tab above, you won’t get updated until you give the OK.

Usually I give the go-ahead toward the end of the month. Much depends on whether it looks like we have more updates coming.

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I reread the “Automatic Update” instructions again. I have followed them to disable automatic update and “notify that update is available.”

As a result, the notification that I received Monday was “Restart required for updates.” This makes sense because my default behavior when powering down this Lenovo Yoga ThinkPad is to set it to “Sleep.” So I guess that I have held off the restart (which still has “notify me before…” in Settings and “Metered Connection” turned on. I am not even looking at the Update and Security Settings to even find out what is there this month. I will wait and see what happens.

Windows 10 on this computer seems to handle going in and out of Sleep much better than the over 5 year old laptop on which I installed everything up through Windows 8.1 Update 1.

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In Win10, if you have metered connection turned on, you should be blocking patches. Wait until other people have bitten the bullets.

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FYI, just received my 2nd notice today, June 23, “Restart required for updates. Select this message to schedule.” Metered connection still on. Still putting the computer to sleep so that I do not do restart.

From above, my 1st notice was June 20.

Separately, I received a message yesterday, June 22 that says “Windows needs to scan your computer.”

The updates are part of “Settings” and yesterday’s message is under “Security and Maintenance.” I guess that I will do that now and see what happens.

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I ran the scan. When it was complete it showed that Windows Defender is up to date and everything is ok. I guess that it must have updated the signatures right before running the scan. Nice to get that security update without having to worry about touching the Patch Tuesday updates.

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What version of Windows?

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Windows 10 Version 1511 updated through May 2016.

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I just realized that I have mixed two different identities on this thread. Woody could see it because the same email address is used for both. My apologies to anyone else who has been following this.

Another recap: I am running Windows 10 Version 1511 with all appropriate patches through May. I have found that Windows 10 on my system, a Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga without a separate graphics chip, wakes up well from repeated sleeps. IIRC, this is somewhat improved over Windows 8.1, with which this system was delivered.

Patch Tuesday was 6/14. I received the first Alert Center notification “Restart Required for Updates” 6/20 and the second identical notification 6/23.

Yesterday, 6/26, I received a more urgent “Schedule Updates” message inside a rectangular box in the center of my screen when I first logged in to the system. IIRC, I have seen those in the past when I was not so careful to keep putting the computer to sleep when powering down. I scheduled my update as far out as I could, Saturday, 7/2.

Woody, this time I was given 6 days with no prodding, followed by two intervals of 3 days with some prodding before I received more intensive prodding. As a result, I have been able (so far) to gracefully postpone Patch Tuesday updates by 18 days. I would like to interpret this as Microsoft allowing itself up to 6 days to get out a first patch, another 6 days to get out a final patch and another 6 days for the market to fully respond. What is your reaction?

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No problem submitting questions with any name you like. It might be easier to track things that way.

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I would not get the update cycle going in the first place! Set Windows Update to Check but don’t install – or even Don’t check.

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