How to completely reset Windows Update

How to completely reset Windows Update

Sometimes, Windows Update mysteriously fails; it freezes, refuses to install patches, or runs endlessly — even on well-maintained systems.

Fortunately, Microsoft has offered new tools and methods for fixing Windows Update troubles, including some specifically designed for Win10. Used singly or in combination with manual steps, these tools and procedures can clear up most updating problems.

‘Windows Update’ is actually many functions

We typically refer to “Windows Update” (WU) as a single operation. But it’s not; it’s a complex mix of critical Windows components.

These components include local system-level databases such as catroot and softwaredistribution. They also include internal software such as the WU service itself (wuauserv), cryptographic services (cryptsvc), Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS), and the MS Windows Installer Service (msiserver). Working in concert, these parts link to MS Update servers to identify, download, and install the correct updates for each PC.

As with any complex system, WU can run into problems with the local components, connections to MS servers, and/or server failures. Moreover, issues with the updates themselves can cause WU to fail.

Windows 10 adds another wrinkle to OS updating. Instead of dribbling out fixes and patches piecemeal, Microsoft gives Win10 regular cumulative updates that bundle all current patches into one download. Each copy of Win10 then extracts the components needed to keep the system current. That makes keeping Windows fully updated easier; you automatically receive all necessary patches and updates in one step.

With older Windows versions, you sometimes have to go through multiple, back-to-back update cycles to get a system fully current. And this piecemeal updating of Vista, Win7, and Win8 can lead to trouble.

Example: The April 2016 Update debacle

Pointing out the root problem is difficult, but would appear that some updates aren’t being thoroughly tested before they’re released. And you don’t have to look far for an example of a major updating foul-up.

Like many other Windows users, I encountered problems with April’s updating. The update packages installed flawlessly on my Win10 and Win8 PCs but royally failed on three Win7 systems and a Vista PC.

In all four cases, the update process would never finish — it just ground on and on and on, not appearing to do anything. (The problem was briefly noted in the April 19 Field Notes column.)

I restarted WU repeatedly over several days; I even left WU running on one Win7 PC for 24 hours, just to see what would happen. But the PCs never got past the “Checking for updates” screen (see Figure 1).

Note that those four systems have significantly different configurations. For example, two of the Win7 PCs are physical boxes from different vendors; Win7 is the only thing they have in common. The third Win7 system and the Vista machine are virtual PCs running under VirtualBox. Their virtual hardware is unlike the physical PCs’, but they exhibited the exact same problem.

Those differences suggested an issue with Windows Update and not with the individual PCs. A malfunctioning Windows Update was the only thing the four systems truly had in common.

Eventually, I corrected the problem by aggressively resetting of all the WU components, a system-file cleanup (to delete possibly damaged Update files already on my hard drives), a Registry cleanup, a manual re-selection of some updates, plus several other steps.

Two ways to correct problems with Windows Update

Windows Secrets has covered WU troubleshooting before. For example, see the June 11, 2015, LangaList Plus column, “What to do when Windows Update fails,” and the Jan. 26 column, “When Windows Update won’t run to completion.”

After those articles ran, Microsoft released new tools for WU issues. (I’ll provide links in a moment.) However, none of the tools helped get WU running on my PCs. But with some trial and error, I found the solution: combining the Microsoft tools with some manual steps that Microsoft never mentions.

Based on what I learned, the rest of this article covers two approaches to WU repairs. The first uses several basic and highly-automated repair methods that should work in the majority of instances. The second is a heavy-duty, less-automated method that should correct even the thorniest WU issues — especially when used with the extra steps I’ll detail.

If you run into trouble with Windows Update, start with the simpler standard repairs. If that fails, try the advanced techniques.

Note: Before trying any of these methods, please read through the entire article first; you’ll have the big picture, and you’ll know what you’re getting into.

Second note: As always, before performing these procedures (or any other serious system maintenance or change), ensure that you have a known-good and recent backup on hand.

Standard repairs for Windows Update

Start with Microsoft’s recently revamped Support document KB 971058, “How do I reset Windows Update components?” That article includes a link for a new Win10 “Windows Update Troubleshooter” plus automated fixits for Win8/7 and Vista/XP.

Download and run the tool intended for your version of Windows. For now, skip the “Manually reset Windows Update components” offered on that support page.

After running the automated troubleshooter or fixit, reboot your PC and try running Windows Update manually:

• Win10: Click Start/Settings/Update & security/Windows Update and then click the “Check for updates” button.
• Win8/Win7/Vista: In Control Panel, click Security/Windows Update/Check for updates

If WU runs to completion, you’re done!

On the other hand, if WU is still failing, you’ll find additional — mostly easy-to-implement — repair options offered on the MS Support page, “Fix Microsoft Windows Update issues.” The options given can resolve still more problems with Win8, Win7, and Vista. (Note: Most Win8 repairs also work on Win10.)

Reboot after trying each suggested fix; then manually re-trigger a “Check for updates,” as above.

Still no luck? There are more standard-repair options available on the “Troubleshoot problems with installing updates” pages for Win8 (and 10), Win7, and Vista. These pages have some overlap with the aforementioned sites, but they’re still worth a visit if Windows Update is resisting repair.

Again, reboot after trying each suggested fix and then click the “Check for updates” link.

Heavy-duty repairs for Windows Update

When simple, automated repairs fail, it’s time to try advanced techniques.

Start with MS Support document KB 971058. Carefully following the updated instructions in the subsection “Manually reset Windows Update components.” This section details a complete, 12-step process for manually resetting all WU components, in all Windows versions from XP onward. (Previously, this information was fragmentary and scattered among different help pages and sites.)

Note that there are two main options. As the documentation states, when first attempting the 12-step manual repair, skip Step 4, which involves “aggressive” repairs.

If the initial manual repair fails, reboot, and then go back and work through all the steps again — including Step 4.

I went through the complete 12-step process to resolve my issues with the April-update debacle, but WU still failed.

To fully restore WU, I had to add several extra steps that Microsoft doesn’t mention anywhere.

If you find yourself in a similar situation — at the end of the 12-step process but with WU still not working right — try this:

• Reboot, but don’t launch any software — let your system settle down to a near-idle state.
• Next, do a thorough system-file cleanup to scrub unneeded, obsolete, and incomplete WU files from the PC. For help with that, see the Jan. 9, 2014, LangaList Plus column, “Clean out obsolete, space-consuming update files.” I normally keep my PCs free of all junk files, but this step found and removed an extra 500-700MB of useless update files on each malfunctioning PC. (I’m guessing they were corrupted/bad downloads caused by the repeated and failed WU operations.)
• Reboot.
• Now run chkdsk and other disk-health diagnostics to ensure there are no issues with your hard drive’s file and folders structure that might interfere with WU’s operations — e.g., orphaned files or fragments left behind by the previous aggressive cleanup steps. For more information, see the “Check the hard drive’s physical/logical health” subsection in the Jan. 7 Top Story, “Start 2016 right with a clean Windows PC,” and the “Disk health” subsection in the Jan. 16, 2014, Top Story, “Keep a healthy PC: A routine-maintenance guide.”
• Run a reputable Registry cleaner. Windows offers no built-in way to remove obsolete and erroneous Registry entries such as partial, mangled, or just plain incorrect Update information. Fortunately, there are several good, third-party tools available. My preference is CCleaner (free and paid; site), though a Web search will reveal more choices.

  Beware: there are numerous “cleaning” suites that exaggerate their ability to improve system performance. (See the Nov. 10, 2011, Top Story, “Putting Registry-/system-cleanup apps to the test”.) In some cases, these apps cause more problems than they solve.

• Reboot.
• Release the IP address for your router and PC. Fresh IP addresses will help to ensure a fresh start with the MS Update servers. It can also help avoid problems with any file caching or download accelerators that your ISP may have in place.

  Consult your router’s owner’s manual for instructions on releasing the IP address. Next, reboot the router via its software interface or by simply unplugging it, waiting 10 to 15 seconds, and then plugging it back in.

  While the router is rebooting, release the IP address for your Windows PC. To do so, open an admin-level command window and enter ipconfig /release at the prompt.

• Reboot the PC.
• When the PC and router are back online, manually run “Check for updates” as described above.

  Note: Rechecking for updates may take a while. One easy way to prevent the PC from sleeping during this process is to open Windows’ Mobility Center and click the button to turn on Presentation Settings. You can access Mobility center by opening Control Panel and entering “mobility” into the search box. Remember to turn off Presentation Settings when you’re done updating.

After a total reset, WU thinks it’s running for the very first time — and that’s the idea! WU will take a fresh look at the updates already installed on your PC, compare that to what should be installed, and then download and install any missing updates (see Figure 2).

Note: Depending on your Windows version and how you have WU configured, the system might offer updates that you previously hid or ignored — various language packs, for example. Feel free to hide/ignore them again but allow all other updates to install normally.

With WU totally reset, with all old scraps and fragments of WU files removed from your PC, and with a fresh connection to the Update servers, you’ll have done everything you can — short of a complete OS rebuld — to get WU working right!

And what if Windows Update still fails?

Alas, the above fixes aren’t foolproof. If WU still won’t work properly, it’s usually due to trouble on Microsoft’s end — not anything in your system or under your control.

For example, on rare occasions the Update servers will get swamped and cause WU to fail or to run extremely slowly. But that’s a self-correcting problem; it’ll usually resolve when the crush abates.

More often, Microsoft releases one or more bad updates — buggy patches or patches that get queued up and installed in the wrong order, and thus interfere with each other. Susan Bradley’s Patch Watch columns can help you avoid problematic updates.

In Windows versions that allow it, turning off automatic updating will let you check what’s in the WU queue and possibly avoid the types of patches and updates known to be troublemakers. Driver updates, for example, are a common source of WU woes. It’s usually better and safer to keep Windows Update from altering low-level hardware drivers on a PC. (See the Feb. 21, 2013, LangaList Plus column, “How and when to update your system’s drivers.”)

With a little care and caution — and the occasional automatic or manual reset, when needed — Windows Update should do its job of keeping your operating system (and MS Office) fully up to date!

Feedback welcome: Have a question or comment about this story? Post your thoughts, praise, or constructive criticisms in the WS Columns forum. To rate this or other stories, click over to our polls page.

 

A single update for all past Win7 SP1 patches

On May 17, Microsoft announced changes in Windows 7 and 8.1 updating.

At long last, there’s a cumulative update for past Win7 patches — and there will be one monthly update for future nonsecurity fixes. That’s both good news and possibly bad news.

One big Windows patch to install them all

As noted in the recent TechNet blog post, there is now a single update that includes all Win7 SP1 security and nonsecurity updates through April 2016. The 488KB patch is intended for IT managers who are updating their corporate-PC images, but it’s freely available to all Windows users via the Microsoft Update Catalog (MUC) site.

Those who have used MUC have done who with a bit of dread. If you’ve never used the MUC, you need to know its quirks. First, the site only functions within Internet Explorer, which has a needed ActiveX control. Next, it has an odd interface. You search for and select an update and then add it to the site’s shopping basket. You then have to go to the basket page and download the file from there. According to the aforementioned TechNet post, Microsoft plans to update MUC sometime this summer to make it compatible with other browsers.

That’s good, because anyone who downloads future Windows updates will probably end up on MUC. (If you’re used to the simplicity of the Microsoft Download Center, the change will be annoying.) Over time, most, if not all, links to update downloads and Microsoft tools will go to MUC.

The May 17 TechNet blog noted another change that might be both good news and bad. It states that future nonsecurity updates for Win7 and Win8.1 will be available in a single, monthly update. Whether that’s the only option isn’t immediately clear, but it soon will be.

Ideally, this change will simplify updating. Patches sometimes need to be installed in a specific order, and I assume that the cumulative patch will handle that automatically. (That process is helped by the fact that there are now relatively few monthly nonsecurity patches for Win7 and Win8.1.) But the change also means that it could be much harder to pick and choose the updates you want added to your systems.

Obviously, Microsoft is herding us all toward Win10-style updating.

Adding the big cumulative-Win7 SP1 update

In theory, we should rarely have to do a clean installation of Windows. If there’s a severe system failure or malware infection, we should have a recent backup image to quickly restore the system. But in reality, there are circumstances when a clean install of Windows is the best option.

But as most of us know, doing a clean installation often means hours in Windows Update, adding perhaps hundreds of security and nonsecurity patches. I recently updated a virtual Win8.1 system that I’d not used in a few months, and getting it current required installing over a hundred security updates and about a half-dozen reboots. It was an annoyingly slow chore.

Win7 cumulative update KB 3125574 should eliminate much of the tedium. The single patch is relatively easy to download (see Figure 1), once you learn how to use the Microsoft Update Center site.

When you click the Download button, you’ll be asked where to put the file. I selected the standard Windows Downloads folder. MUC then displays the download progress (see Figure 2).

If you’re used to finding patches in Windows Update, you’re in the wrong place for KB 3125574. Double-clicking the downloaded update file will launch and run the Windows Update Standalone Installer app, shown in Figure 3.

WUSI apparently doesn’t give any real status while it’s running. After about an hour and a half, I opened the Windows Event Viewer, following the instructions on the app’s info page.

I applied the recommended filter for the WSUI log, but there were no logged events. So for now, the only option was to leave the process running and see what happens. (Three hours into this process and WUSI is still running. I’ll report more in the Lounge post for this column.) Bottom line: It might be a one-patch process, but it’ll likely be extremely slow.

UPDATE: Sometime overnight, the update process failed. On restarting it, a progress dialog box appeared relatively quickly (see Figure 4).

This time, KB 3125574 finished installing in under an hour. Not surprisingly, completing the process required a system reboot. The real surprise came when I looked at Windows Update. Update history listed KB 3125574 as successfully installed, but WU also showed that there were over 60 security updates that were ready for installation. Now the system is stuck on “Checking for updates.”

A handy power tip for VirtualBox users

As mentioned above, the Win7 system I used for testing the new cumulative update is a virtual machine running under VirtualBox. It was an ideal test machine because I haven’t used for a while. The virtual machine is stored on an external drive, and when I tried to launch it, VirtualBox popped up an error message. The virtual drive could not be loaded because there was another virtual drive on my system with the same UUID.

I assume anyone who works with VirtualBox extensively has run into this problem. After a bit of research, I quickly solved the problem with a simple Command-window control. The details are nicely laid out by Randall Kent on his blog site.

Feedback welcome: Have a question or comment about this story? Post your thoughts, praise, or constructive criticisms in the WS Columns forum. To rate this or other stories, click over to our polls page.

 

Questions about new Win7 cumulative update

Microsoft has just released a major Windows 7 roll-up update, designed to make clean installs of SP1 go faster. A Lounge member asks whether others have tried the patch.

One user’s experience is reported in the Windows Secrets newsletter.

Another related issue is slow update scans for Win7, also discussed in the Windows 7 section.

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions for which you might have answers:

Office Applications
Word Processing	Help needed with page numbering
Spreadsheets	Highlighting rows in Excel on mouse over?
	Return max value for given substring
Databases	Late Binding busted?
Microsoft Outlook	Outlook/Live Mail trouble after upgrade to Win10
Non-Outlook E-mail	Help needed accessing Hotmail via Gmail
Windows
Windows 10	How to get rid of a popup message at boot
	Computer started slowing down!
	Apparently defective installation
Windows 7	On-going thread: Slow “Checking for updates”
	Win7 roll-up experiences?
Internet/Connectivity
Internet Explorer and Edge	Bogus pop-up message?
	Transferring IE 11 settings
Third-Party Browsers	Colors and fonts of Firefox top bars
Other Technologies
Security & Scams	Tech support scammers taking tips from ransomware
	7-Zip vulnerabilities
Maintenance	Full-image backups via Image for Windows
	Image restore affecting System Restore
Hardware	What to do about optical drive?
	Replacing hard drive in laptop
Other Applications	WinZip self-extractor uses invalid directory

Starred posts are particularly useful.

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right into today’s discussions in the Lounge.