Windows Update History Gone

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So I got a little issue going on which I would like to get back.

What happened? I was reading here in the forums and I came across an issue like what I was experiencing; the “where is the Windows Update bubble gone?”. So reading here
http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread//170897-Lost-Windows-Update-Icon-in-System-Tray

I got to find out there were 4 updates that affect this; the first one that starts this whole thing was KB3065987 which my system had. The other updates that were to supersede this one I had not updated my system with.

I got to reading this because I had some time to work on the I did notice the past few months “where is the update bubble?”

So I read on and everything pointed to the update. There are a couple of fixes so I started with the easiest; uninstall the update. So I did that and I rebooted and guess what? My update bubble was back. But then two things changed. First, if I go to “Windows Update” I see the first problem. It says “Updates were installed: Never”. So I said that’s got to be wrong so I clicked on “View update history” and to my surprise it is completely blank. I then went to the powershell and typed “get-hotfix”, but here it does show all my installed updates with their dates and all. So I want to fix the “View update history” so it is back to showing what was installed and when. Sorry, I do not have restore on. I then went to my control panel under installed programs, clicked on “View installed updates” and everything is there as well.

The next thing that changed is when I said the bubble was back; well, yes it was back showing me a ton of updates to do. Fortunately I have an excel spreadsheet on my updates and I checked these against all the ones being offered and all these were hidden updates that I had done over the years so pretty straight forward; hide them again.

But it is the “Updates were installed: Never” and the “View update history” being blank that I would like to get fixed. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Windows 7 Pro, 64-bit. Thanks

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I don’t know why uninstalling that update would have removed the contents of the SoftwareDistribution folder which does remove the history as JW has said, but it would seem to have had quite an effect on the Windows Update process.

Losing the history is nothing to worry about as it won’t affect the installed updates as you have found and will soon repopulate with subsequent updates.

Renaming the SoftwareDistribution folder to .old or deleting its contents is part of a standard Windows Update fix and the history is only relevant to check the status of an update when you get update problems to see if a particular update is listed as Successful or Failed.

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@jwoods – Looks like the SoftwareDistribution folder is fine.

@Sudo15 – Not sure why either, but it did what I described above.

One thing though is that it is good to be sleepy. Somehow I did run an image of my system prior to these October updates (log said 1:03am). I don’t remember doing that so for this whole month I was saying to myself “God I should have run an image”. So I just re-imaged and I am back in business. But strange that this update did what it did.

I also went back to read that post and later on it does say that when you uninstall KB3065987 that it will do what it did. All I can say is “wow”.

I did try the gpedit trick and it works, the Windows update bubble is back. I also did the registry hack on my “Home” versions of Windows 7 as they do not have the gpedit console to view and they too work again.

Thanks to both of you for helping, I did not know about the GWX so going to read up on that. More to read…..

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