MS Delivers Windows 7 "Convenience Rollup" to soften update woes.

[VirtualLarry]

FYI -

Just had some time to try this out:

So first I installed Win7 w/ SP1

Then you first have to install this Servicing update patch:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3020369

Then installed the new Rollup Update.

Then checked for updates and had 56 important ones including IE11

Installed those and then checked again and installed 22 more.

Much faster than the standard method!!! very nice!

Now to figure out how to slipstream this rollup into windows and create a bootable installer...

I installed Win7 64-bit Home Premium SP1-U using a USB stick into a Gigabyte Brix J1900 box with a 300GB Intel SATAII SSD, 8GB GSKill RAM, and it installed OK. Then I installed the drivers that seemed to apply to Win7, off of their driver CD, that I used another machine to do a simple copy off of the CD to a USB stick.

Then I downloaded the April 2016 Servicing Update, and then the Convenience Rollup, and installed them in that order, rebooting between.

Then I tried "Checking for Update" to get IE11 and the remainder of the updates. But now it checks "forever" again.

I tried then downloading and installing the "Excessive CPU Usage when using Windows Update in Win7" patch and installing that, but no difference.

Still seems to check "forever".

Any ideas?

Does installing the Convenience Rollup on a fresh SP1 system, result in "infinite" Windows Update times?

 

[tcsenter]

Still seems to check "forever". Any ideas?

How do you have WU configured? Check for updates automatically, download but install manually, don't download only notify?

 

[VirtualLarry]

How do you have WU configured? Check for updates automatically, download but install manually, don't download only notify?

"Never check for Updates". Which, AFAIK, is full manual mode. I initiated the WU check.

Finally, after a number of hours, one of my J1900 rigs returned a list of updates. It was on wired ethernet, and I didn't have F@H running on that one. Still waiting on my other one. (Running F@H on 3 out of 4 cores, on WiFi.)

 

[tcsenter]

What I've done (I'll try it again probably this weekend because I got some more SSDs) is to have it set for 'check but do not download or install', then I'll use the 'check for updates' icon/button. Let it check for about 20 minutes and then restart the PC. Yes, while it is still checking, I just restart it and let Windows close the updates service. When the PC restarts, after waiting another 10 minutes or so, I open Windows Updates applet and the updates are there.

I believe the lag could be related to an update that runs CheckSUR (a.k.a. System Update Readiness Tool). But unlike the stand-alone readiness tool, it doesn't download the full payload it only downloads what it needs to after checking the servicing store for errors.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

This article could offer some tips re network connections, etc. to make things easier. Interesting that they recommend installing this even if you have a fully patched system. Not sure I will do that though...

How to make installing the Windows 7 convenience rollup a little less painful

http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to...ws-7-convenience-rollup-a-little-less-painful

 

[tcsenter]

OK well I finally got around to a 'test' of sorts. Back in December 26, 2015, I created a custom WIN7 installation image using this approach, entirely patched with all important, critical, and recommended (except drivers) Windows Updates as of 12/26. The initial 'base' install used the latest unaltered MS ISO for Windows 7 SP1 64-bit (media refresh).

The test system I installed on was i5-3570 quad (default freq), 6GB DDR3 RAM, iGPU, and cheapo TLC SSD on Intel Q77 board. Then checked for Windows Updates after configuring to 'check for updates but let me chose whether to download or install'. It took about 40 minutes to return the list of updates available, which was approx. 58 in all sans the hardware drivers offered. I did not install the convenience rollup, since I already had 90% of those updated applied.

I'll try another test but this time using the convenience rollup before checking.

 

[Ranulf]

The cpu bug is driving me nuts on a desktop machine. It can last an hour or three... wuauserv running, using up 12% cpu pegging all 8 cores at 4.2ghz. Has my cpu fan running at its max 1300 rpm. Then it just stops, cpu throttles down to 1.4ghz and all is well. Until you try to actually update anything.

Tried various single KB updates and still it just seems to hang on searches unless I kill the process and/or reboot. Then telling it to download all or just 1 update and it just sits there doing nothing. Wasted an hour earlier to get nowhere.

Currently testing wsusoffline updater on a laptop that hasn't been updated/powered on since January.

Edit: Laptop updated fine via wsus. First attempt it just seemed to stall for an hour. Stopped it, turned off windows update check, wireless and rebooted. Ran wsus again, it updated in about 25 minutes. Ran a check on reboot with win update, took 2-3 min to find 8 important updates. Downloaded and installed all of those in 10mins. I haven't tried the optional updates yet, (.net update, skype, silverlight etc.).

 

[Dahak]

Just a small bit of random testing, for what I have done

1 - Set windows updates to Never Check
2 - Have the computer offline
3 - Install the Servicing Stack Update KB3020369
4 - Install the Windows update client update - KB3138612 (March 2016)
5 - Then install the Convenience Rollup - KB3125574

Now it seems to only take about ~10 minutes or so did not really time it but was not the hours its was before.

This was on two fresh HP laptops out of the box

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Thank you! great point about keeping the computer offline. I will try that next time as I would expect it to be faster as well.

Just a small bit of random testing, for what I have done

1 - Set windows updates to Never Check
2 - Have the computer offline
3 - Install the Servicing Stack Update KB3020369
4 - Install the Windows update client update - KB3138612 (March 2016)
5 - Then install the Convenience Rollup - KB3125574

Now it seems to only take about ~10 minutes or so did not really time it but was not the hours its was before.

This was on two fresh HP laptops out of the box

 

[tcsenter]

Apparently MS has released (yet another) update/patch for Windows Update Client and Servicing Stack that reportedly aims to address the unusually long time to check/process updates in Windows 7 (and Server 2008 R2). Anecdotally there appears to be a couple positive reports that it actually works (this time). It can be obtained as part of an update rollup:

June 2016 Update Rollup

Haven't tested it myself but intend to. Note: Prior to installing, change Windows Update to "never check for updates". Then re-enable updates checking AFTER the rollup is installed (after reboot).