Windows 7 update still a problem

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Michael Horowitz comes to the same conclusion we all have been confronting. Very happy to see this go more mainstream. Windows Update on Windows 7 is
[See the full post at: Windows 7 update still a problem]

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What amazes me, is why there aren’t thousands – nay millions of users complaining about this. Perhaps they are blissfully unaware that there is a stack of updates waiting in the wings, because the System Tray ‘Updates are available’ notification disappeared sometime last summer.

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I still get the tray notice. Win7-64 Professional. GWX Free running GWX Control Panel. WU set to notify but NOT download and give recommended updates is NOT checked. None of the GWX patches are installed and are hidden when they resurface.

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I don’t get your connection to an article in Computerworld as being “more mainstream”?

I don’t think the average John & Jane Doe visit computer related sites that often. I’ve never heard anything on any of the network news programs or seen anything in any of the major news sources other than in their geek columns. And not just about this update issue, there hasn’t been much in mainstream about the GWX Gestapo campaign either.

I can understand it not making front page at MSN-dot-com but there are other very large news sources out there. Seems to me like one of their competitors could have a lot of fun with this overwhelmingly negative M$ stuff.

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Responding to Ed’s comment from above:
As a middle-aged non-techie, my perspective is that “Computerworld” is not a mainstream news publication/website that I would happen to run across on even a monthly basis, but it IS, to my cohort, more of a “known” brand than the sites that seem to be mentioning all this Get-Win-X brouhaha regularly. It’s possible that it has a lot of casual non-techie readers who visit it every once in a while to keep up with the highlights of computery news and reviews.

A wider point, which I think is the one Woody was making in his blogpost above:
Every additional computer/tech-industry commentator/journalist of good repute who indicates that this brouhaha is a topic of concern
lends the whole thing more gravity, and shows Microsoft and the still-unaware members of the public how seriously this has affected most customers of Windows — even the most ordinary and compliant customers are now being messed-about and bamboozled.

—-
On a more cheerful note:
I have noticed for quite some time, especially noticing a few days ago during my most recent search-engine search on one of the May Windows7 Windows Update patches,
that many of the sources that talk about these issues, from across the world and across the media/blog spectrum, are linking back to a Woody InfoWorld article or to this AskWoody website as the original source for their statements, and as the place to go to get further information and advice about this Windows malarkey.

This must be increasing your viewing figures, Woody… get that ad posted! 🙂 🙂

(…if it is posted but I just can’t see it on the screen due to all my blocking, apologies.)

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I have just read the Computerworld article and I see that it, too, mentions Woody as such an important source of info!

The Computerworld article also links to the following article, which I enjoyed reading:

“The ‘new’ Microsoft? I still wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole
In an as-a-service world, everything hinges on trust” http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/06/thoughts_on_the_new_microsoft/

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Naw, you’ll see the ad when it gets here. Look for something that looks just like any other blog post. But we’re still a couple weeks away.

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there was a update from last year that hid the icon. Removing the update allowed the icon to work again. Don’t remember the # but searching this site , you should come up with it. Or someone may remember.I’m lucky if i can remember to get up in the AM. Course I’m retired so I don’t have to, but 33 years of 5:30 alarm going off and my internal one still does. Please don’t hate!

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Three new optional updates just appeared (Win 7 x64).
KB3123862, “This update adds capabilities to some computers that lets users easily learn about Windows 10 or start an upgrade to Windows 10.”
KB3139923, “This article describes an issue of MSI repair that occurs after you install security update 2962490 in Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT 8.1, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1), or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.”
KB3156417, no documentation at this time.

All optional, unchecked, unitalicized.

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i think i had an error with the page… I followed a link from here to get to the page below, I did download and Install all of those Updates- seems to have worked as a possible fix for the “WUD taking an hour just to find updates issue”
http://wu.krelay.de/en/

It found updates recently. I combed through all of them to see what I felt I could install, installed them and rebooted. I ran WUD again it found 1 final update almost instantaneously. So either the updates fixed the issue for me at least or MS might be realizing there are refuseniks out there that are holding on to W7. I’d honestly would transition to W10 if they would implement a full Aero Glass Interface that W7 had.

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KB3123862

nag POS ware. Hide it

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I just ran a check, less than 5 minutes it found the optional updates,…

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I was one of those where the WU notification disappeared last year. The problematic patch (for me) was KB3075851 – Windows Update Client August 2015. I can’t remember exactly what I did but it involved more that just un-installing this KB. And due to the length of time that has passed now, I’m unsure if it would help or not.

Search at MS Community, there were many threads dedicated to this.

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I’m wondering whether the slow Windows Update issue is now carrying over to virus definition updates for Microsoft Security Essentials. Having noticed that my virus definitions were a couple of days old, I decided to update them manually. What used to take a minute or so, took 35 minutes this time.

The updates had not occurred automatically, despite the fact that Task Manager showed that wuauserv was running. I suspect that MSE may have attempted to update the definitions automatically, but eventually timed out.

If this speculation is correct, it bodes ill for security for anyone running MSE.

As I recall, MSE’s virus definitions come through Windows Update, so I’m led to suspect that the WU problem

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On my computers too it was KB3075851, and uninstalling that update brought back the system tray icon. However, as I recall, Josh Mayfield’s tool GWX Control Panel restored the icon without requiring that patch to be uninstalled.

In my experience, uninstalling KB3075851 had the side effect of deleting everything in “View Update History”, although it did not adversely affect the actual list of “Installed Updates”.

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