Vista is broken

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I haven’t been keeping up on Vista. This from reader AB: Nobody seems to have noticed that Microsoft have broken Windows Vista.  Almost any Vista mach
[See the full post at: Vista is broken]

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Nothing new here — these are exactly the same symptoms as Windows 7 was exhibiting at around the same time. Perhaps Vista wasn’t as widely mentioned at the time, but mitigation is available.

Go back to the, for example, September 2016 page at http://wu.krelay.de/en/2016-09.htm for potential solutions.

You should be encouraging your Vista-using clients to migrate to something further from its EOL and this poor update performance can be a useful tool for that. Many of mine (residential Vista users) have been happily relocated in Linux Mint.

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It’s the same here, Woody. My Vista system is unable to find updates since the end of July. Security Update for .NET Framework 4.5.2 was the last installed thing (25-July-2016)

No matter what I do and how long I leave the system turned on, it’s not showing available updates. And the CPU usage consistently remains at 100% unless I turn off WU.

MSE definition updates are coming up as usual.

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Vista is my daily OS (and also installed on a couple of other multi-boot machines I have here). I’ve found Update is indeed as borked as with my Win7 installations, but following the advice at http://wu.krelay.de/en/ does the trick.

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i have the same exact problem from augast, mine is working fine regardless to the no updates issue yet its BS

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Any chance AB isn’t aware there are “magic patches” available for Vista?

Figured I’d throw that out there, you never know.

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Due to a variety of reasons I am still stuck with Vista on 2 of my machines (I run my own business, but IT is not my profession, I am just good at it). Indeed the Windows Update search takes very long nowadays. I always install the so-called “magic patch” manually first (AskWoody is a great source every month to know which patch is magic this time) and then let Windows Update do its work. Despite installing the magic patch first, it still takes a long time for WU to find the available updates, varying from 3-4 hours on my fastest machine (Haswell Core-i7, used to be 30 mins. max.) to a little over 12 hours on my other machine (in a VM, used to be 1 hour max). During all that time svchost runs at high CPU. I also noticed that when I set WU to not search for updates at all, svchost will still be high when the new monthly updates have been released, which I think is very strange.

The search time after installing the magic patch seems to be increasing every month. I have been wondering what would happen if someone did not install the magic patch first. I assume only if one leaves the machine on 24/7 it will find the updates in the end after a seriously long time.

Yes, MS drives us away from Vista and if you do not know anything about the magic patches it is even worse. Unfortunately for me, I still have no opportunity to try another upgrade to Windows 7 very soon. It will have to wait for another couple of months.

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I am a Vista fan. My Vista machine is a Dell Inspiron 530 I bought in 2008. It now has Vista x64 on it. I haven’t used it lately. I have Windows Update set to: Download updates but let me choose whether to installl them. The computer has been in “sleep” mode. I just checked and there are 26 updates waiting to be installed. All of these updates were published prior to June 2016. I will see what happens on my machine…

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I have a Vista laptop that admittedly I haven’t turned on since August. But at that time it was up-to-date and not being onerous to update, which would at least provide a counterpoint to your June time frame.

If I get a moment this weekend, I’ll haul it out and fire it up to see if it’s misbehaving. But this being the holiday weekend and Murphy’s law dictating that things should break during holidays, I’ll be wrangling with a plumber and yard issues for most of it.

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In early October, I followed the Vista instructions at the wu.krelay.de/en/ site, and the update scan time went down from “interminable” to “feasible.”

I’ll go see if that fix held; if not, I’ll try the latest suggestions from that site. (That machine mostly gets used for trying out linux distributions, and only gets booted into Vista every few months…)

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Although Vista is quite dead (some kind of Zombie state it seems ;)), it still has the same issue as Win7 but unfortunately the fix is not as simple, requires a lot of updates to be installed before checking for updates. There are discussions about it on the VistaX64 and WSUS Offline forums:
http://www.vistax64.com/windows-updates/303992-windows-update-just-seems-hang-while-checking-post1408440.html#post1408440 (current set of prerequisite updates in posts #402 ff.)
http://forums.wsusoffline.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6100

I hope this helps.

Regards
Dalai

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I have a Compaq laptop running Win7 Home Premium 64 bit that developed that problem. My only solution (after waiting days for Windows Update to complete) was to shut off Windows Update entirely and then just run the security updates downloaded from the catalog.

So far that has kept the machine alive and security updated.

(Presario CQ62 with single core Intel Celeron and 8 Gig memory)

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I have the exact same problem.

My Vista was my last stand against the craziness that is going on but I run unhappily without updates because Windows update broke this summer after years without any issue.

Wow, I thought it was maybe not coincidental to the changes in the way MS handles updates, but I thought it was still an isolated problem I suffered. To think so many would be affected and not just a small subset is scary.

So Microsoft broke my product before the end of support date?

Things look more and more like there was a master plan to get us all hooked on the big brother network. Next, words will start to disappear from the Internet?

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I have encountered the same — no updates since June.

When I click on the update icon in the lower right corner (or when the box pops up telling me I have updates to download) all that comes up is the one old non-security update from June that I never downloaded.

When I click “Updates” in the Control Panel every month, it will search all day for updates but never come up with any.

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Thanks!

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I have been running Vista Home Premium on my Dell Inspiron 1501 ever since 2007. Before I had Windows 95, 98 an XP on all my machines. I was hoping Windows 10 solved all the problems associated with 7 and 8, but instead 10 was worse. I wanted to wait until after the Holiday Season before purchasing a new notebook computer, but now I may be forced to move that schedule up. I will NEVER purchase anything associated with Microsoft ever again. I will be purchasing a new Apple Mac Book Pro.

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Still using 1 Vista x64 laptop for software reasons. Using Dalai’s magic, updates are still coming. The last session, earlier this month, took about 2 hours to find updates. Downloading and installing was fast, under 1/2 hour.

Thanks again to Woody, Dalai and Canadian Tech for saving us much time and aggravation.

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https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-update/updates-not-working-it-has-been-searching-for/92cd6922-17f6-4730-b46b-91a480b95dd3?msgId=1ef00080-91e9-4ffa-a5a3-92f6ecd69c32

Solution is here, in what I’d consider the “official” complaining thread.

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Same with me. Despite the magic patch, this month it took two days of seven hours each to find the updates for my Vista laptop. The laptop is unusable during that time because of the CPU demand. Download and installation takes less than half an hour, though.

I don’t understand why MS thinks that by making my current use of their older system untenable they will somehow persuade me to buy a new system from them. Clearly, large market share = unbearable arrogance.

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So many times have I heard people say “go to Linux” or “Go to this or that OS”. When I ask them are they going to be there for those people and do the training or support for them they shut up or walk away. If you are helping these people and support them as clients then you are doing the right thing and are a good man. It is easy to “say” change over to some new OS to them and then walk away.

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I maintain a Vista x64 Ultimate test system. I just looked – the last time I allowed it to update was in June. So I reconfigured the firewall, started the Windows Update service, and initiated a check for updates at 10:15 am…

1. TrustedInstaller.exe began a hard loop on one of the 4 cores with some disk access that lasted about 2-1/2 minutes.

2. The svchost.exe instance containing wuausrv began a hard loop on one core without disk or network access that has lasted 4 hours so far.

3. I’m going to let it run; I presume the Windows Update control panel window will finally change from “Checking for updates…” to showing a list of available updates.

This doesn’t sound/look terribly different than the “slow update / hard looping” problems that were (are?) plaguing Windows 7. Every month someone claims the problem has been solved by one or another of the current Win 7 updates, but from what I have seen it just comes back again.

It’s debatable whether an inability to receive more Microsoft Updates should be considered “being broken”.

-Noel

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My only Vista box (used as an emergency machine or a guest computer) stopped updating Vista back in 2015 with similar symptoms and results.

Given that a Vista meltdown killed our old laptop (rescued with Ubuntu Linux install), I just installed LXLE Linux and still use it as a Linux distro test bed. Unfortunately, due to its age and the obsolescence of its AMD CPU graphics engine it will only runs select distros.

I will either build a new PC Linux box with the Ubuntu gaming Pack or Steam OS, or just convert a cast off older Windows machine from someone upgrading to a newer machine. I love my Win7-64 Pro, but the writing is on the wall and it has big red arrows pointing to an MS-free future.

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Windows Vista updates…broken.
Windows 7 updates…….broken.
Windows 8.1 updates…..broken.

I think the pattern is pretty obvious. Especially now with Windows 8.1.

I believe I’ve mentioned this in a previous post – I did several installs of Windows 8.1 about 6 months ago and I had no trouble getting updates.

The initial checks took less than 5 minutes. I installed the W8.1 security updates first, rebooted, and then installed the rest. After the first reboot, the rest of the updates appeared straight away.

Now, W8.1 is having the same update problems as W7 and Vista. I’m sure it isn’t just coincidence.

Wouldn’t it be nice if MS would just ‘fess up and admit they’ve been trying to make things difficult for Vista, 7, and 8.1 users so they (hopefully) give up and just install W10?

I have no trouble believing that, especially after their shenanigans with the GWX campaign.

I’m hoping the truth will come out one day. From someone like a disgruntled ex employee possibly.

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Yep, Win 8.1 Update now takes forever, right after installing Group A November Updates. I suspect more like us are having this same problem. Hope we get a fix before the December Updates are available.

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I used the Microsoft Update Catalog to install all missing Security updates for Windows Vista Home Premium x64. I had to reset the Windows Update components a few times along the way using the Microsoft Fixit tool, as the Standalone Installer would hang on occasion. Only one restart was needed after all updates were installed. Windows Update is now back to normal (for the time being). This was still a lenghty process, as I had not used the computer in several months.

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If you’re having the issues on Win8.1 as well, you may try the updates listed on my site wu.krelay.de/en/.

Last week or so I made some tests on Win8.1 and can confirm that it is now having the same issue as Vista and Win7 had before. This applies at least to clean installations, even if the latest DVD from Microsoft was used to install the OS. That’s why I’ve been listing the updates for 8.1 on my site as well. I also made some changes to the automation script (InstallPrereqMsu.cmd) after the tests I mentioned above, so it can now run on Vista, Win7 and 8.1 and install the appropriate updates there.

HTH

Regards
Dalai

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Thanks!

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Yeah cheers Dalai handy web site. Win8.1 WUD had gone to horrendous times and i was missing the one update installed it and win8.1 WUD runs like a champ now 🙂

Strange how all these “Legacy” OS,s have developed an aversion to updating around the same time Hmmmmm….

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+1

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Both my ‘VISTA’ machines are up-2-date.
Manually, find and load the sideshow ‘updates’ ‘office’, etc, through the ‘stand-alone-installer’. Stop the update service, per manual update, for S-A-I success.
The main ‘events’, usually come flying-in, and 1 or 2, do turn up subsequently. Yes, the processor runs at 50%: you can always stop the update service.
It’s protracted; but, it works-4-me.
It stops me playing addictive, obsessive, waste-o-time computer games. The computer is my game.
VISTA being close to EOL: software, browser etc, are beginning to bale-out early, long before next April.
THOUGHT-O-THE-DAY.
Treat yourself to a new machine for Christmas.
Merry Christmas to all my readers. AK
p.s Disable all the games: saves yourself a fortune.

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No end in sight so far. 25 hours 49 minutes of Xeon x5690 CPU time chewed up by the svchost instance running wuausrv, and it has gathered 1.2 GB of RAM into its working set, making it quite likely the least efficient software in history. I could have generated hundreds of dollars in bitcoins with that much CPU time.

Probably legally no one can claim Microsoft has actually broken the system if it actually does finish in a matter of days or weeks.

But make no mistake, this is very broken in a practical sense!

Any Microsoft folks reading this, think about what you’ve done here. You should be ashamed to take home a paycheck for this. You are as bad any malicious malware writer.

I’m one user who’s most certainly NOT incentivized in any way to upgrade to Win 10 by such antics!

In fact, this compels me to advise as many people as I can against buying anything more from Microsoft, and to harden current systems against snooping or meddling by what was once a viable operating system company and a worthy partner.

-Noel

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Yep same problem here. And It takes an eternity to search for an update.

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This is old news. I’ve commented on WU/MU crappy performance on Vista numerous times over the past several months, pointing out high memory utilization and svchost spiking.

No “magic patch” has provided any relief. I have taken to downloading all monthly security updates and then installing the .msu files manually. Afterwards, I let WU/MU check for and install updates for Office 2007.

It’s a pain, but all my x85 and x64 Vista systems are completely updated.

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Windows 10 RTM and Windows 10 version 1511 also have the same issue

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Makes me wonder if all these broken update systems are a result of the “patch fragmentation.” Although Vista doesn’t have long left anyways. But as for Windows 7 and later. There’s no excuse.

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I doubt it’s “patch fragmentation”. A Vista system has been receiving updates through WU/MU for 10 years. So all kinds of detritus have been accumulating for a very long time.

The ability to remove crud from Windows Update using Disk Cleanup was added to Win 7 but never back-ported to Vista.

Couple that with Microsoft’s disinterest in supporting Vista beyond the barest minimum and its easy to understand why the monthly patching cycle has become a horror show.

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seems to be a broken weekend all round strange you mentioned win10pro1511 developed a long download time and a 3rd time lucky install problem i just put it down to server timeout and the fact GPOL is set to ignore drivers and notify download and install. But for a real challenge try getting photos off an Android with broken screen makes M$ update look like a walk in the park lol 😉

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It needs to be understood that the set of magic patches identified by Dalai and the triggers of this issue are the same. By identifying solutions, he has identified the problems.

As a new development the Cumulative Security Update for IE 9 has joined that club, like in Windows XP at the end of the year 2013.

https://www.neowin.net/news/svchost-bug-still-spikes-cpu-at-100-6-months-before-windows-xp-support-cut-off

Regards, VZ

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So far, 53 hours of CPU time wasted and no end in sight.

-Noel

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Shoulda started mining Bitcoin…

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Well, you can try the updates listed in the VistaX64 and WSUS Offline forums I linked above, when you’re done heating up your room or don’t want to play the waiting game anymore ;).

Regards
Dalai

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@Dalai, Woody, Abbodi86 et al.

Just rand WU on Win8.1×64 laptop.
10 Important + 14 Recommended & Optional in 8 minutes.

Installed 3 important (no restart needed) in 4 minutes.

Thanks for the speedup tips.
JF

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Hi Noel:

Have you read the step-by-step instructions posted in the MS Answers forum at https://answers.microsoft.com/message/1ef00080-91e9-4ffa-a5a3-92f6ecd69c32?

I post in that forum as user Great White North, and those instructions include some tips for Vista SP2 users who would like to try pre-installing the Windows kernel-mode driver (Win32K.sys) speed up patches recommended on Dalai’s website at http://wu.krelay.de/en/ to see if this workaround will speed up their Windows Update.

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+1

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I ran a test using WSUS Offline and downloaded every Windows Vista update known to man in approximately 90 minutes.

I personally am having no issues with Windows Update on Windows 7.

I tested WSUS Offline on Windows 7 as well, and took less than 90 minutes.

This was on a 6 up/1 down DSL line.

http://download.wsusoffline.net/

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Should be 6 down/1 up DSL line.

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Results, for the sake of completeness:

The initial “check for updates” ran for 20 hours before I gave that up and rebooted the machine.

Since the last successful run had been early in the month, I installed the two wu.krelay.de/en/2016-10.htm October patches for Vista, plus the three for November. That took about 45 minutes– the standalone installer asked for a reboot after each one, and I was inclined to indulge its whims.

This allowed the subsequent check for updates to complete successfully in a mere 6 hours and 10 minutes. (!) 21 found; installation took a little under an hour.

It’ll be a relief when Vista goes into a nice quiet retirement from the update grind in five months, like dear old XP…

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Just a guess, Noel knows very well how to use the speed-up patches. I am sure he is running WU like a regular user for research purpose.

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Exactly, I did it specifically to reproduce the problem stated here. And reproduce it I have.

It’s a test system, with no particular need to be updated, nor even to be usable except for the occasional compatibility test with software under development.

I’ll probably terminate the test in another day or so.

-Noel

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For what it’s worth, I’ve been having basically the same issue with a Windows 7 Ultimate machine.

No updates, searches forever without success, high CPU usage by the update service.

It would appear that whatever was done to Vista can happen to 7.

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Did you follow this advice?

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3136677/microsoft-windows/how-to-speed-up-windows-7-update-scans-forever.html

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Yep. I don’t have a lot of Vista systems to manage, but the ones I do are a royal mess.

I don’t see Microsoft as caring. I really believe Microsoft should have atoned for Vista by offering a free or discounted Win7 upgrade to Vista system owners back in the day.

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Bought a Gateway laptop w/Vista. Free upgrade to Win7. M$ mailed me a CD.

Upgrade never did work right. Bought a Win7 retail. Seven years still good.
JF

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I have a Vista x64 virtual machine (CPU configured to 2 cores and memory configured to 8 GB) running under VMware Workstation, with updates up to June 2016. My host is a computer with a X99 motherboard, Core i7 6800K CPU and 64 GB RAM.

As a test, I installed the missing updates KB3185911 / KB3191203 / KB3198234 / KB3203859 as indicated in the “Updates not working” thread:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-update/updates-not-working-it-has-been-searching-for/92cd6922-17f6-4730-b46b-91a480b95dd3?msgId=1ef00080-91e9-4ffa-a5a3-92f6ecd69c32

I have also set Windows Update to “Never Check for Updates”.

After I started “Check for Updates” manually, the process immediately took 50% of the total CPU power (one full core) in the virtual machine.

Time from starting to check to showing list of updates : 14 minutes

Time from starting to install (20) updates to completion : 7 minutes

So in this case the time is still within acceptable limits. However, I can certainly see someone with a (much) less powerful computer will face much longer waiting times (possibly hours) when checking for updates.

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I also noticed that Volume Z in the “Updates not working” thread claimed that by installing the IE9 Cumulative Security Update KB3197655 in addition to the other patches, it will reduce the checking time considerably. So I did a second test on the virtual machine by installing KB3197655 in addition to the other 4 patches.

Time from starting to check to showing list of updates : 3 minutes

Time from starting to install updates to completion : 5 minutes

So, I can say that at least in this case there is some truth in that claim.

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I also launched another virtual machine running Windows Server 2008 x64 (the server counterpart to Windows Vista x64), configured to 2 core CPU and 8 GB RAM, and also patched to June 2016.

Without installing those “magic” patches, I started to check for updates in Windows Update, and it took about 13 minutes for the update list to show up.

So apparently Windows Server 2008 was not too significantly affected by this issue at this time.

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I think it is obvious that Microsoft is not going to provide any sort of “permanent” solution to the Vista update problem, knowing that Vista will be out of support in April next year.

Still, this is a ridiculous situation. I just saw Noel Carboni reporting that his test system using a 6 core Xeon CPU from 2011 still cannot show the update list after 53 hours (more than 2 days) of checking updates. As Noel said, Microsoft should be ashamed of creating such a mess for its paying customers.

If Windows Update on a Vista machine is left in the default state of automatic checking, then I can imagine the machine running hard for days consuming a full core of CPU power without completing the checking (not to say downloading the updates and installing them). Such a waste of electricity with no purpose whatsoever. And if the machine was a low end with only a single core or dual core CPU, this meant that 50% or 100% of the CPU power would be consumed by Windows Update, essentially crippling the computer.

So if you are the unfortunate owner of a Vista machine and for whatever reason needs to stick with it, and if you do not have the time to deal with this crap, perhaps the best way is to set Windows Update to “Never Check for Updates” and stop installing updates altogether (Group C)? If you still want to install updates on your time, I still recommend that you set Windows Updates to “Never Check”. That way your computer will not be crippled and you can carry on doing your work.

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@ James B ……. Seems, M$ hv been crippling Windows Update for Win Vista/7/8.1, in order to “force” their users to upgrade to Win 10 = more $$$$ for M$.
.
Posting this reply to u from a hand-me-down, obsolete n EOL’ed Win XP machine, which is not very different from Win Vista/7/8.1 cptrs that hv broken Windows Update n Patcholypse.

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No they are not, that’s just FUD
the issue also affect Windows 10 ver 1507 & 1511
and they already released permanent fix for Win 7/8.1

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Hi James Bond 007:

Thanks for posting those test results. That’s in the same range that I’ve seen for Vista SP2 users with a 64-bit OS and 4 MB of RAM who pre-installed KB3203859 to speed up their Nov 2016 Patch Tuesday updates – see beginner64’s post at http://www.vistax64.com/windows-updates/303992-windows-update-just-seems-hang-while-checking-post1408488.html#post1408488 for one example.

I’d just caution users not to expect those types of results under “normal” conditions with an older 32-bit Vista SP2 machine with a dual core CPU and around 3 GB of installed RAM (and less than 2 GB of free RAM once they load a real-time antivirus and other essential drivers at boot-up). In practice, many 32-bit Vista SP2 users who have managed to keep their systems fully patched by installing Dalai’s recommended Windows kernel-mode driver (Win32K.sys) speed up patches each month saw a significant jump in their “Checking for updates…” hang in October and November 2016 – typically 60 to 90 min hours for Windows Update to run to completion and install about a dozen available updates, with most of that time consumed by the initial “Checking for updates…” phase.

A few 32-bit Vista SP2 users with limited amounts of RAM who had two or three months of updates pending (Sep/Oct/Nov 2016 ) reported that Windows Update took around 9 hours to run to completion after all their missing Win32K.sys speed up patches were installed in November 2016.

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Same for me. During the summer all attempts to update stall. Even the “manual installer” for the “miracle updates” that will fix updating won’t download!

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Hi Joecompute:

The step-by-step instructions posted in the MS Answers forum at https://answers.microsoft.com/message/1ef00080-91e9-4ffa-a5a3-92f6ecd69c32 might be helpful.

The download links in Note 2 are for .msu installers from the Microsoft Update Catalog (i.e., not the Microsoft Download Center) and Note 3 has a special warning for any Vista SP2 user having difficulty downloading .msu installers using their IE9 browser.

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@ abbodi ……. Similar to the broken Windows Update in Win Vista/7/8.1, Windows Update is also broken in the older Win 10 v.1507 & 1511 bc M$ wanna “force” their users onto the latest v.1607 = more $$$$ for M$.
……. IOW, it is likely the policy of M$ to cripple Windows Update for older versions of Windows, even though they hv not yet reached EOL = more $$$$ for M$.
.
Windows Update has only been “fixed” for those Win 7/8.1 users who hv sheep’ily allowed M$ to install hidden Telemetry updates on their cptrs via Windows Update, eg might be hidden inside KB3172605, the July 2016 Rollup “fix” for a clean reinstalled Win 7.
……. Windows Update in Win 7/8.1 remains broken for those who hv refused to allow M$ to install hidden n non-hidden Telemetry updates via Windows Update = can’t be “fixed”.
.
Was it FUD when in 2012, M$ implemented non-disabled-able Secure Boot in all new OEM Win 7/8 cptrs b4 they backed-down.?
Was it FUD when recently M$ disallowed Intel’s latest Kabylake chips from supporting Win 7/8.1, ie only supporting Win 10 … n even for the previous Intel Skylake chips b4 M$ backed down.?

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Yes, a lot of FUD, but remember that most of those who post are not professionals and some would hardly be classified as Power Users, even if they consider themselves as such. They were sold a product which was supposed to do everything for them at no or very little maintenance and those claims were proven as not being true.

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It is certainly FUD to expect Microsoft to support newer processors for a product which was released originally in 2009 while those processors were released in 2016.
The consumer is right only in a “buyer’s market” and this has nothing to do with reality, but rather with the theory of selling and the actual moment in the economic cycle.

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There is nothing hidden in the fix and it’s not related to any Telemetry components

don’t mix bad marketing decisions with ignorant FUD

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@ ch100 ……. When M$ released Win 7 in 2009, did they state that the then-latest Intel chips would only support Win 7 n not Win XP.? … Similarly, when M$ released Win 8 in 2012, did they state that the then-latest Intel chips(1st generation.?) would only support Win 8 n not Win 7/Vista/XP.?
……. Wasn’t the backwards compatibility of Windows with older versions that made it triumphed over Apple’s MacOS during the 1990s n 2000s.?

Seems some Windows users hv become like Apple’s iSheep, like love-blind Rihanna willingly being abused by her then-bf Chris Brown for some time.
.
.
P S – Fyi, Intel’s 7th-gen Kabylake chips also do not support Win 8.1, which was released by M$ in 2014 = only 2 years ago.

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I had this exact problem on my vista system. In mid-October I installed wsusoffline updater. It installed a number of updates and I haven’t seen the svchost issue since. Windows update is still a mess in that it hasn’t updated it’s “updated were installed” date since July (most recent check for updates” is still dated April). The ‘view update history’ is still way off but I assume this is because vista itself is not updating.

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http://http://download.wsusoffline.net/

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@LoneWolf: there were some free Win7 upgrades from big manufacturers like Dell and HP on select pre-installed Vista computers made in mid-2009. My cousin’s Dell Inspiron 546 desktop PC had pre-installed Vista home basic edition 32bit but came with a free Win7 upgrade offer. Few seem to know and take advantage of it though.

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It was not “patch fragmentation” but ultimately using a very outdated WINDOWS UPDATE AGENT on Vista and having a very hard time displaying a list of 250+ available post-SP2 updates for Vista after installing/re-installing Vista from scratch.

One person in the Neowin.net forum ran a Windows Update scan on a dual-core based Vista machine and it took about 67 STRAIGHT HOURS for Windows Update to display a list of available updates:
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1270562-windows-vista-sp2-fresh-install-windows-update-doesnt-work/

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Since Windows 10 now experience the issue, i doubt it has anything to do with updates amount
and it certainly not related to the machine CPU/RAM specs.

The issue is more likely caused by the supersedence chain that is scattered among some updates, specially when a chain contain almost 20+ updates
that’s why installing certain updates correct or fix this chain to work without delay

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