Recently I was tasked with staging some Windows 7 machines that needed to have all the updates, since Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 was released, installed. However on all four machines the were stuck in a mode where the Windows 7 update never stops checking for updates. In the first instance I let the search go on for 30 hours before I cancelled it.
They were all new machines that came with Windows 7 Professional Server Pack 1 pre-installed. They happened to all be Hewlett Packard Desktops but I think that is irrelevant to the problem I was having.
Per a Google I found several sights with suggested fixes but nothing worked. That is until I found this on a Microsoft Answer site, which I am posting here so that I can find it later should I need it and so that it may help someone else with the same problem.
The first step, which none of the of the sites from the early searches ever mentioned was to download the Windows Update Client from Microsoft’s support site. You can go to the site yourself by typing this into your location bar
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3138612 Or go directly to the page via this link Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: March 2016
There are versions for Windows 7, Sever 2008 in both 32 and 64 bit so make sure you select the correct download for your version of Windows. Once you have the file downloaded but before you run it. Open a Command Prompt as an administrator by right clicking on it and selected “Run as administrator”
Once the command window is open type: net stop wuauserv
You should get a message similar to the one above (although the screen shot comes from a Windows 10 machine and not 7) noting that the service was stopped successfully.
With a success message you can now run the downloaded program from earlier. After the installation is complete, reboot your computer and then try the Windows Update again.
In my case, for these particular machines, this suggested fix took care of the problem. However your mileage may vary.
