Widows Update not Updating, plus solution.

[NomoneyNohoney]

This I'm sure is common knowledge to techier people, but just for those like me that were faced with a problem, well, hope it's of help.

Recently I wiped a computer hard disk and reinstalled windows. Much to my chagrin, Windows Update didn't work at all. It looked like it was trying, the green progress bar flickered like Gort's eyes, but nothing ever completed, and reboots claimed Windows Update had never been run.
I used the Windows 'Windows Update troubleshooter,' and also the System File Checker, neither of which worked. I tried many times restarting the Windows Update, it searched interminably but found nothing. I read web page advices, and nothing helped.

Eventually, I found my way to http://www.wsusoffline.net/ which downloads updates manually, and hallelujah! At last I started to download some updates. Once it had done that, then I followed their instructions, ran it manually and it installed some updates, and suggested a reboot. Did that, and then found the actual Windows update had started to work. Now, after an afternoon of downloading and installing some 226 updates, all seems to have sorted itself out. Not only that, Windows Update keeps on finding odd ones for me to add, so all seems well.

You can also save the updates for use on another computer, without having to connect to the internet, so that may be of use also.
Hope that helps someone who either now or in the future faces the same problem.

[Breelander]

...after an afternoon of downloading and installing some 226 updates..

Sounds like you are on Windows 7. To make checking for update run even faster you could install the 'Convenience rollup update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1' https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3125574 (only available direct from the Microsoft Update Catalog) then run Disk Clean Up, click the 'clean system files' button and tick the resulting 'Windows Updates Clean up' item. This removes all supersceded updates and makes checking for new ones much faster. I wrote about it here (click 'whole thread' link for even more details):
https://web.archive.org/web/20161110193 ... 07440.aspx

[NomoneyNohoney]

Could I just say, it's actually Windows Update, nothing to do with bereaved wives.

[Breelander]

Could I just say, it's actually Windows Update, nothing to do with bereaved wives.

That's my 2nd most common typo - the most common being 'Windows 20'

[Infrasonic]

Could I just say, it's actually Windows Update, nothing to do with bereaved wives.

Although the amount of time you've just spent updating windows...