Resolving the Stuck on Checking for Updates issue in Windows 7

Lately I've been finding Windows Updates under Windows 7 to be a real pain. One of the more common issue is where Windows gets stuck on checking for updates. This can go on indefinitely.

The following steps often resolve the issue. I say often because in some rare cases the issue can persist...

- Open an admin command prompt

- Enter "net stop wuauserv"

- Run KB3138612.msu

- Restart PC

- Open an admin command prompt

- Enter "net stop wuauserv"

- Run KB3102810.msu

- Enter "net stop wuauserv"

- Run KB3135445.msu

- Run WindowsUpdateDiagnostic.diagcab

- Run WindowsUpdateDiagnostic.diagcab again (must see everything fixed)

- Run Windows Update and check for updates

One last thing: always make sure you have the latest version of the Windows Update Client.

Comments

Where are SCANPST.EXE and/or SCANOST.EXE?

I sometimes have to deal with customer computers whose Outlook PST or OST files have become corrupted. Very often the fix is to run SCANPST.EXE on the offending PST/OST file. However, every time I go to do this I forget where the two executable files are. Here is where they are on a Vista machine running Office 2007: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12 I hope this helps.

WSUS Issues

Was configuring WSUS on a Server 2016 VM for a customer recently and found the performance to be very sluggish and most of the time the client PCs would time-out and throw an error message when trying to check for updates. After much digging on different forums I came across a fix that worked nicely: Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager and click on Application Pools Then Right-Click on your WsusPool instance and choose Advanced Settings Scroll down to Private Memory Limit (KB) and change it from the default of 1843200 to 0 which means unlimited. Then right-click and stop the WsusPool and then start it again. Hope this works for you.

APC PowerChute Network Shutdown - Authentication Phrase

Was installing APC PowerChute Network Shutdown (PCNS) on a customer’s server and couldn’t find a record of the Authentication Passphrase that I set ages back on their Smart UPSes Network Management 2 Card. So I went to reset it on the card and start anew… it took a lot of digging to find it on their particular release of firmware: Go into the UPS tab, then into “shutdown” inside the “Configuration” category: You may then need to change the passphrase being used on other servers. To do this, open up PCNS in your browser and click into the area shown below:

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