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Please download the newest version of Never10 (v1.3.1), which was released April 18.
v1.3 has the ability to remove the Win10 install files and can reclaim a few gigabytes of space.

Never10 is a portable app – you can easily copy to a Win7/8.1 PC and you can remove it.

So if you are using an old version of Never10, delete it and download the newest version.

Instead of installing just the newest win32k.sys security updates for Win7, try downloading & installing the June 2016 KB3161608 Update Rollup for Windows 7, which includes the KB3161647 Windows Update Client fix of June 2016.

Installing KB3161608 seems to have permanently resolve the problem – about as effective as installing the newest win32k.sys update for June which is KB3161664.

A more permanent fix is to install the newly released June 2016 Update Rollup for Windows 7 SP1 – KB3161608.

The KB3161608 update rollup includes the Windows Update client fix of June 2016 – KB3161647.

I just installed the newly released KB3161608 update rollup, rebooted and did a WU scan, and it took between 5 to 7 minutes to display a list of available Win7 updates.

Note that the KB3161647 fix is not available as an individual patch so just obtain the KB3161608 update.

Susan’s article says “There have been several Windows Update Client patches that should have helped solve the slow update scans. KB 3102810 (Nov. 3, 2015) was followed by March’s KB 3138612. Ensure that you have both installed; and check out a Dalai site that lists other patches that can help improve update-scanning speed.”

The Dalai website she linked to says “The following update is (most likely) not required if the Windows Update Client of December 2015 or later is already installed: KB3102810, reduces Update Agent’s CPU load.”

Could Susan clarify if this update is really needed, given what the Dalai website says?

The KB3102810 & KB3138612 updates for Win7 SP1 did little or nothing to improve Windows Update scans.

What DID work was to install the newest WIN32K.SYS security updates KB3145739 and KB3153199, which Susan was not aware of (but Woody was aware though – some readers contacted him about manually downloading & installing the newest win32k.sys updates like KB3145739 and KB3153199 to actually speed up WU scans).

Using outdated versions of the WIN32K.SYS file on Win7 SP1 seem to cause very long Windows Update scans. So to speed up Windows Update scans bigtime on Windows 7 SP1, try installing the very latest WIN32K.SYS security updates, reboot and then try running Windows Update again.

Well if you have a failed update then something is getting down the line – did you get an error code ?

Go to Windows Update/View update history right click on the failed update then click on View details.

This is what it once gave for one of mine –

Security Update for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB3145739)

Installation date: ‎17/‎04/‎2016 17:46

Installation status: Failed

Error details: Code 800F0902

Update type: Important

The norm these days for getting the Check for updates to produce anything in Win 7 is to just leave it running and wait for them to be offered in their own time.

KB3145739 was the solution to use between April 12 and May 9. The KB3147539 update for Win7 was NOT doing the job anymore once May 10 (patch tuesday for May) and so the Windows Update long search/scan problem came back on May patch Tuesday 5/10/2016.

It’s because of using outdated WIN32K.SYS files on Win7 that seemed to cause very long Windows Update scans.
The solution is to keep installing the newest Win7 SP1 WIN32K.SYS security updates – this time it’s KB3153199.
Install KB3153199 on top of KB3145739 as KB3153199 does NOT supersede/replace KB3145739.

KB3153199 seemed to reduce the Windows Update scan times on my Win7 machines – for now until June 14 (the patch Tuesday for June) in which there may be another new WIN32K.SYS update being released if the long Windows Update scan problem comes back.

The KB3123862 update was silently revised in mid-May 2016, so the “new” one offered in mid-May 2016 is a “revised” version than the one originally offered in early Feb. 2016.

I don’t currently have any of my 19 PC’s running Vista.
But, I do have several customers who DO run Vista and currently with NO problems.

Some have even called Vista the new Windows Milenium. And I must say, I’ve never understood why.
For most people, it works, and works as good as any OS from Microsoft.

Just like XP, Vista will still be run on many PC’s for a long time to come.
If it works, don’t mess with it. Eh?

The Doctor 😎

Extended support for Windows Vista ends on Tuesday April 11, 2017 as noted on this Microsoft Support Lifecycle page for Vista.

Reasons why Vista was called the new “Windows ME” are (1) the steep hardware requirements back then (1Ghz CPU with 512Mb of RAM – for Vista basic; for higher Vista editions (like Vista home premium, business & ultimate editions) 1Gb of RAM was the minimum. (2) several software applications and device drivers were not compatible with Vista (when first released in early 2007) and manufacturers had to produce new apps/drivers that provided proper Vista support which took a while and (3) the original RTM release of Vista in early 2007 was kinda buggy – that was later corrected with Service Pack 1 released in early 2008.

But a couple of Service Packs for Vista made it more usable .

Edit: It’s best to use Firefox (as long as it’s a 32bit version of Firefox). The 64bit editions of Firefox will not support nor run on Vista AND require minimum Windows 7.

And read this blog post from the Google Chrome Blog site:
http://chrome.blogspot.com/2015/11/updates-to-chrome-platform-support.html
Google Chrome will drop XP and Vista support on April 2016. After that time, new versions of Chrome browser will only run on minimum Windows 7.

What Microsoft built into Windows 10 from the start, it recently added to our Win7 and Win8.1 systems via a series of updates. (That’s caused quite a tizzy in the blogosphere, with most of the “discussions” based on conjecture and hearsay.) For example, optional KBs 3075249, 3080149 and 3068708 give Win7 and Win8.1 data-gathering capabilities similar to Win10’s.

I wanted to make a minor correction to what Susan said about the KB3068708, KB3075249 & KB3080149 updates.
These updates for Windows 7 & 8.1 are no longer Optional. They have been rated as IMPORTANT by MS Windows Update either in late August or in early September. If Windows 7 or 8.1 is set to Automatically download & install updates, then Win7/8.1 will automatically download & install these 3 updates.

edit: The three updates [KB3068708, KB3075249 & KB3080149] are rated as Recommended updates by Windows Update as I ran Windows Update on a Win7 computer. Thus, those updates are NOT Optional anymore.

1/ You could try System Restore. No guarantee it will work though as History is just a log.
2/ No. It just starts again with the next update.

system restore won’t solve the problem with the Windows Update history. Removing “Windows Update Client” updates such as KB3065987 or the newer KB3075851 will always clear the Windows Update history and that behavior is, in Microsoft terms “by design”. It doesn’t bother me.

Here’s something you might try, and if you do it, you’d be killing two birds with one stone:

Sounds like your hard drive might have some years on it. If so, it would be a good time to replace it, because sooner or later it will fail on you, being as old as it is.

I suggest that you install a new hard drive, do a clean install of XP on it, and then install the old drive as your secondary drive. The machine would always boot to XP, and all of your documents, pictures, etc, would be on the secondary drive, and available to you. If you then copied all of your documents, pictures, etc., to the new drive, you could then remove the old drive, put it in a static bag, and keep it as a full backup of your old system.

not only install a hard drive, install one that has more storage space of at least 100Gb (Win10 uses much more disk space than XP) and faster speed (maybe a 7200 RPM hard drive over a 5400 RPM hard drive)

My upgrade experience confirms Joe’s answers.

The upgrade automatically disabled my Norton Security Suite and enabled Windows defender. I also got an Action center message that a Norton update was available. For now, I uninstalled Norton.

Jerry

It is a smart choice to remove Norton as they claim that their antivirus software is compatible with Windows 10 but there are still some issues with them. See the following:
http://community.norton.com/en/blogs/norton-protection-blog/windows-10-compatibility-norton-products
http://community.norton.com/en/forums/windows-10-support
http://community.norton.com/en/forums/windows-10-missing-norton-no-solution

Right. But then so was Win7, WinVista, and WinXP Professional [not Home]. I have a copy of WinXP Pro 64-bit but by the time I had 64-bit hardware available I had a need for 64-bit Vista on it. The availability of WinXP Pro 64-bit was a lot like Win95B and Win95C support for FAT32 which seemed to be only available from the OEMs, never could find it as an upgrade or retail version. I got the feeling Microsoft didn’t want to handle the problem, let the OEMs take care of them on their hardware.

FYI – There were TWO versions of 64bit WinXP Pro, Berton. One called Windows XP 64-bit edition for Intel Itanium processors (though I wanted to call that one Windows XP Itanium edition or IA64 edition) and the other Windows XP X64 Edition. The X64 edition of XP Pro was based on the Windows Server 2003 Kernel Code base as that one was identified as NT version 5.2.3790.

I know cuz I’m using XP x64 edition on a custom built PC with an Intel D101GGC board and in the D101GGC board product guide I downloaded from the Intel web site, Windows XP Professional X64 Edition is listed as one of the supported OSes.
I’m also using an Intel Pentium D 945 (a dual-core) CPU on there with 2GB of RAM. when I did a fresh install of XP x64, it was setup as an “ACPI x64 Multiprocessor based machine”

I’d rather see Berton & figaro143 create a customized XP pro disc with SP3 already integrated or slipstreamed so that the latest SP for XP doesn’t have to be installed later on after initial setup of XP. it saves a lot of installation headaches with the latest SP already integrated with the XP installation.

many recent programs don’t work on Windows XP RTM/SP0/SP1 unless either SP2 or SP3 is installed. better the latter w/ SP3.

SUPERAntiSpyware is also pretty good MSE replacement on Windows XP.
already a day before 7/14/2015 and I already removed MSE off of my old XP computer.

get any antivirus/antimalware product for XP except for McAfee.
The current versions of McAfee antivirus & internet security products have already removed Windows XP support (a few months before the 7/14/2015 cutoff date) and require minimum of Vista SP1 to install and run as I checked the mcafee web site myself.

Avira, AVG and Avast are good free antivirus software replacements for MSE (and all 3 of these still support XP).