"Preparing Windows" - for what?

My guess is when you checked, it had already downloaded some updates and was in the process of updating the computer. So when you check it reported to you that no [new or additional] update were available.

10 minutes is a very long time. That would concern me too. But with notebooks (which tend to be very proprietary) it is hard to say what happens. If you have not done so already, you might want to tell Windows Update to worry about Windows only, and not device drivers too. My guess is it was updating drivers.

See How to Stop Windows 10 From Automatically Updating Hardware Drivers. Note for most users, letting Windows 10 update drivers too causes no problems, and most importantly, keeps the computers current. So if you disable this, you will need to get into the habit it checking manually.

 

Scroll down to the bottom of the Update history. There are separate update sections for "Driver Updates" and "Other updates".

 

Hmmm, I guess that explains why my oldest date is 4/11/2017.

I don't know what to say here. For 100s of millions of W10 users, Windows Update works flawlessly. But of course, that does not matter if one of the rare problems happens to you.

 

Hi Christer, I just found this fix for W10. Windows 10 1607 Script fix to unblock update for Windows Insiders
Download Windows 10 1607 Script fix to unblock update for Windows Insiders from Official Microsoft Download Center
I can't guarantee this is what you want, but others who were experiencing W10 download problems found it worked.

 

Thanks Neil. I'm going try that to.

 

One of the many great mysteries of Windows universe.

 

The link didn't help with my Insider comp not installing the last 2 updates. Something was/is corrupt in the OS. It had downloaded and installed at least 51 updates without problem prior to its refusal to install 16199 and 16215.
I fixed it by downloading the MCT W10 Pro 64bit Insider Preview to USB and installed on a new SSD. New Insider OS works like a dream and has updated ALL necessary MS updates and Asrock motherboard drivers.
I'll work on the problem build when I feel like it. I don't need the stress at my age and I've copied and pasted (via USB drive) any data I wanted from the problem OS drive.

 

Retiredlearner, I downloaded this script and ran it. Is my next step to try to update windows or just wait and see if it work by itself?

 

LJ tried it and I tried it and I think it only pertains to KB3194496 (Cumulative Update 14393.222). Sorry. My Post above is the drastic measure I took which gave me a fresh start.

 

Nothing new here. I tried to install windows from the ISO file on a flash drive. It got to 20% and quit. I went to the MS site and tried the new Creator version. It made it to 89% and quit. On the Creator program, it start out installing and seems to be doing OK. When it get to about 70%, it starts slowing down and when it gets to the mid 80's percentage wise, it slows to a crawl. From 86% to 87% took almost 10 minutes. I have upgraded to 16 gig ram, turned off my virus program. I also had run scan now and chkdsk and Malware Bytes before trying each one.
Back to the drawing board.

 

Reduce your RAM to 4GB's and see if that helps.