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Fixing Mum's laptop
Fixing Mum's laptop
21 Feb 2016 : Fixing Windows Update on a clean install of Windows 7 SP1
Being passably technical I do tend to get handed stuff that doesn't work by friends and family.
'No' I'm really busy isn't the answer especially when it's your Mum.
It was fine, a physically clean Acer, running Windows 7 Home Premium. The operating system was broken!
Permissions were weird, the C drive was open to everyone and some piece of horridware was writing directories
on bootup that an Administrator had to take Ownership of, just to delete them.
Windows Update wouldn't, and after hours of running Rootkit reveal ( and finding stuff ) and Autoruns and sfc
/runnow etc etc, it was time to give up, throw an SSD into the machine and put a clean Windows 7 Professional
32 bit x86 onto it and transfer a few files, or so I thought.....
Two days in and I have just got it working now and Mum flies this morning and it is now 04:50 on a Saturday
night / Sunday morning, I really should have better things to do...........
So I have good Windows 7 SP1 images and I personally use Rufus to burn the ISOs to USB flash drive and I had
a burner SSD that I threw into the machine and that all worked super quick which is great as this machine is dog
slow with a single core Athlon.
( No I didn't buy this machine for Mum to save a buck, her proper machine which I did buy for her is a HP Elite
book 8440P ( I own 5 and swear by them ) , but that, as you can imagine, ain't the one the one that's broke! ).
Anyhow, that isn't the story. The story is that I just could not get this machine to go up onto Windows Update, it
just wouldn't, it would hang at 100% CPU and sit there. I used the GREAT Sysinternals tools ( thank you Mark ! )
to check processor activity, file writes etc, but no dice, Windows Update wasn't working on a clean Win 7 SP1
build.... stuck!
I had a hunch Windows Update, needed updating, but how do you do that if it can't fix itself?
I did try Microsoft's FIX IT and it didn't ( How do I reset Windows Update components? ) and that page gives a
link to the 'latest' Windows Update Agent ( KB2937636 ) which isn't and didn't....... There are some scripts on
technet that suggest it will reset Windows Update and they didn't, and I rebuilt Windows ( twice ), and updated IE
to 11 and downloaded .Net Framework and that didn't work either until.
I stumbled across a page, suggesting I download another version of Windows Update Client for Windows 7, well I
already had, an earlier version. The clue was in checking the WORKING Windows Update on my laptop
wuaueng.dll found in
C:\Windows\System32 or more generally %systemroot%\System32
The version of wuaueng.dll that was working in my laptop was Product version 7.6.7601.19077
Being passably technical I do tend to get handed stuff that doesn't work by friends and family.
'No' I'm really busy isn't the answer especially when it's your Mum.
It was fine, a physically clean Acer, running Windows 7 Home Premium. The operating system was broken!
Permissions were weird, the C drive was open to everyone and some piece of horridware was writing directories
on bootup that an Administrator had to take Ownership of, just to delete them.
Windows Update wouldn't, and after hours of running Rootkit reveal ( and finding stuff ) and Autoruns and sfc
/runnow etc etc, it was time to give up, throw an SSD into the machine and put a clean Windows 7 Professional
32 bit x86 onto it and transfer a few files, or so I thought.....
Two days in and I have just got it working now and Mum flies this morning and it is now 04:50 on a Saturday
night / Sunday morning, I really should have better things to do...........
So I have good Windows 7 SP1 images and I personally use Rufus to burn the ISOs to USB flash drive and I had
a burner SSD that I threw into the machine and that all worked super quick which is great as this machine is dog
slow with a single core Athlon.
( No I didn't buy this machine for Mum to save a buck, her proper machine which I did buy for her is a HP Elite
book 8440P ( I own 5 and swear by them ) , but that, as you can imagine, ain't the one the one that's broke! ).
Anyhow, that isn't the story. The story is that I just could not get this machine to go up onto Windows Update, it
just wouldn't, it would hang at 100% CPU and sit there. I used the GREAT Sysinternals tools ( thank you Mark ! )
to check processor activity, file writes etc, but no dice, Windows Update wasn't working on a clean Win 7 SP1
build.... stuck!
I had a hunch Windows Update, needed updating, but how do you do that if it can't fix itself?
I did try Microsoft's FIX IT and it didn't ( How do I reset Windows Update components? ) and that page gives a
link to the 'latest' Windows Update Agent ( KB2937636 ) which isn't and didn't....... There are some scripts on
technet that suggest it will reset Windows Update and they didn't, and I rebuilt Windows ( twice ), and updated IE
to 11 and downloaded .Net Framework and that didn't work either until.
I stumbled across a page, suggesting I download another version of Windows Update Client for Windows 7, well I
already had, an earlier version. The clue was in checking the WORKING Windows Update on my laptop
wuaueng.dll found in
C:\Windows\System32 or more generally %systemroot%\System32
The version of wuaueng.dll that was working in my laptop was Product version 7.6.7601.19077
Conclusion
If you can't get a clean Windows 7 SP1 build to
update via Windows update, install KB3112343
or search for :
' Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and
Windows Server 2008 R2: December 2015'
I will not insert a link, it will surely expire the second
I publish this page!
Its 5:25am, and the machine is currently installing
update 104 of 199, lets hope it doesn't reboot and
want to download more!
Once done, Clonezilla the fully patched Win 7 SSD
over to the original HD, Mum isn't getting my SSD,
sorry Mum!
Update at 08:45 still struggling : I don't really know
why this machine is so hard to get working and
updated.
On a lighter note, I turned on the Radio, Steve
Reich, Duet was playing . I wanted to hear it again
immediately and found it here courtesy of NPR....
Good luck! Anna......
If you can't get a clean Windows 7 SP1 build to
update via Windows update, install KB3112343
or search for :
' Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and
Windows Server 2008 R2: December 2015'
I will not insert a link, it will surely expire the second
I publish this page!
Its 5:25am, and the machine is currently installing
update 104 of 199, lets hope it doesn't reboot and
want to download more!
Once done, Clonezilla the fully patched Win 7 SSD
over to the original HD, Mum isn't getting my SSD,
sorry Mum!
Update at 08:45 still struggling : I don't really know
why this machine is so hard to get working and
updated.
On a lighter note, I turned on the Radio, Steve
Reich, Duet was playing . I wanted to hear it again
immediately and found it here courtesy of NPR....
Good luck! Anna......
Update : 30 March 2016
My Favourite pod cast is Security Now, Leo and Steve. Episode 551 highlighted exactly the problem I have talked
about above. Steve has created a bitly link to Windows update Update : here : http://bitly.com/wupup
My Favourite pod cast is Security Now, Leo and Steve. Episode 551 highlighted exactly the problem I have talked
about above. Steve has created a bitly link to Windows update Update : here : http://bitly.com/wupup
Update May 2016
KB3125574 released : this update is large, and while it isn't a service pack, sort of is. Load this for new Win 7 builds
from the Microsoft catalog website ( IE needed ). It should fix various problems including Windows update.
KB3125574 released : this update is large, and while it isn't a service pack, sort of is. Load this for new Win 7 builds
from the Microsoft catalog website ( IE needed ). It should fix various problems including Windows update.
Update December 2016 ;
My current Windows 7 Pro / 32 update version with
the Rollup feature working ..
My current Windows 7 Pro / 32 update version with
the Rollup feature working ..