Hi all
I have by accident stumbled on another possible solution to the above problem.Windows extended support ends for vista and 7 home in spring 2017, but windows 7 professional users will have extended support until 2010 so may not be ready to change OS yet.
It really annoys me that the official stance is to just upgrade to the latest OS but whenever you change there is always a chance that printers and legacy programs wont work properly. Not everyone has the finances in place to be able to do this. Certainly a lot of businesses have stuck with windows 7 pro which is why MS are still offering extended support and you can still buy new computers with win 7 pro provided by downgrade rights from 10, direct from the major computer companies.
Link to original "solution" below:
http://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Computing-Advice-Technology-Chat/Windows-updates-hanging-workaround/m...
I've just removed AVG as my vista laptop was suddenly getting very slow (strangely since the latest daily pop up upgrade ad campaign!!!) and having ruled out other causes I thought that was next on the list of suspects. I installed a fresh copy of ms security essentials (also known as defender in some OS). Well so far things are a lot faster so all good there.
MS security essentials updates from the windows update location and after it had downloaded the latest definitions I noticed that windows update had voluntarily checked for updates which it hasn't done since July. The other workaround involves downloading a standalone update which seems to trigger the correct search and location of all new updates. But this method seems to be automatic if you have it set to update prior to a weekly scheduled scan. Obviously the big test will be January's update tuesday.
Meanwhile I have now got a clean install of windows 7 professional running on a slightly newer laptop. Having installed security essentials on this machine and had it download the latest definitions, windows update ran normally and found all the updates necessary with out any problems over 3 sessions. Given that windows 7 users have been tearing their hair out with the same problem as vista users, It seems that this workaround is working for 7 as well?
*** Just a safety reminder for those changing antivirus. Go to the providers home site for the download. Download the new program first. Update the old antivirus to its latest definitions then go offline and perform a full antivirus scan ( with the old one) and anti malware to make sure your system is clean. Then remove the old one completely - some anti virus provide a complete removal tool which saves you searching for dregs but I always do a search anything left behind as well . Restart and install the new antivirus and connect back to the internet when it is asking to download updates.
