Resolved Fix for Windows Update slowness and stalling?

Yesterday when the August 2016 batch of updates were released, nothing happened on my system running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit with the most recent version of the Windows Update Client installed. Today, I restored an image from last month but no difference, something has changed. It sat there "doing nothing" for six hours. During that time, I browsed the internet for a solution.

My hopes weren't high but I found the July 2016 update rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (not to be confused with the "Convenience rollup update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 ") which seems to be a cure. I checked the file information which indicated a more recent file version for the components of the Windows Update Client. I aborted the stalled Windows Update, downloaded and installed KB3172605. The next run of Windows Update took 5-10 minutes to display the new updates.

Next, I uninstalled KB3172605 and was taken back to a stalling Windows Update. A reinstallation of KB3172605 cured the problem once again.

I guess that we can substitute a "!" for the "?" in the title: Fix for Windows Update slowness and stalling!

 

All the links in the chain:

Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: June 2016

which was "included" in

June 2016 update rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

which has been superseeded by

July 2016 update rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

 

Thanks for the heads up Christer - works for me on my old Win 7 box

 

You're welcome ... ... !

One additional note: Being a Ghost user, I rolled back my system to a state with no update to the Windows Update Client installed. After installing KB3172605, at the first run of Windows Update, the previous update to the WUC, KB3138612, showed up. Installing it is probably a bad idea ... ... and I recommend hiding it if it shows up after installing KB3172605.

 

I tested installing KB3138612 after KB3172605. The installer doesn't "roll back" to the previous version and no files of the previous version (7.6.7601.19161 as opposed to 7.6.7601.23453) were found in C:\Windows\System32. No restart was requiered which also indicates that no changes were made.

 

This update is a real improvement of the WUC on Windows 7 64-bit. On my system, it has reduced the time to check for updates, including Microsoft Security Essentials, by half (approximately). That is timed between system start and final release of the process "TrustedInstaller" and memory usage. The CPU and memory footprint is also reduced during the updating processes.

Now ... ... why did it have to take this long to come up with this solution (KB3172605) and why is it not delivered automatically via Windows Update (or is it)?