Wed 23 Nov 2016 09:48
Slow Windows Update on Windows 7 again? Install two Windows Update patches first.
Back in May,
I wrote about Windows Update for Windows 7 taking many hours or even
days; the fix then was to install two patches manually first.
The problem has returned. Even if you install the two patches I mentioned in May, you may experience very slow updates on Windows 7.
Happily, again there's a workaround: grab two patches, different than before, and manually install them. Get KB3172605 and its prerequisite KB3020369 from the Microsoft Download Center, and install them manually in numeric order, before running Windows update. If making a fresh Windows 7 installation, simply install Windows 7 SP1, followed by KB3020369, then KB3172605, and only then run windows update. These two patches seem to address the slowness issues: after they were installed on some of our systems here, Windows Update ran in a reasonable amount of time.