Windows updates slow down.... h**ps://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-update/windows-81-update-checking-for-updates-forever/de7e1757-7072-40b8-8ea4-b74179861180 The Fix
Hah ha. No surprise to seasoned vets/users of their new compliment of code writers who do the bidding for the advancement of 10. Seen that coming a long long time ago and many already have provisions in place to prevent such shenanigans at the end user's point.
I don't have such issues on Win 8.1 x64. I am using wufuc v1.0.1.201 and Windows Update check for updates for less than a minute.
It's a good story, but it's not true. I just booted to Windows 8.1 and it took seven minutes to finish checking for updates. I then did a clean install and it took about 45 minutes or so to check for updates. Also, within about five minutes of booting and checking for updates, Windows had downloaded and installed the proper video driver. Sure, the check for updates could have been quicker, but it did not take hours and as I already noted, it took just a few minutes to check for updates on my previous Windows 8.1 install. The answer in that link is laughable. While I can ignore that he said "switchers" instead of "switches," taking a very long time to check for updates, does not equate to bricking a computer and I've got no idea why the directions say you need to install CCleaner and clean temporary files. In the past, I have at times experienced issues with checking for updates. But at the moment, it seems that we are not at the so called "MS-Defcon 2."
This is all just laughable. If this was at the beginning I would not have bothered reading the rest. Corporal Woody himself can use some serious advice (and even a light therapy). Either I'm living in a different universe or these guys are making all this up - and then replying to their own posts from different accounts. The thread you linked is 2 years old and there are only 2 of them discussing in it. You'd expect such a major "switcher brickup" would attract more attention. Anyway, who checks for updates for several hours? Wouldn't you suspect sooner that something is off?
I missed that part. I wrongly assumed it was a recent thread. I guess it may have been two years ago, when there were issues with it taking a long time to check for updates. But it still was a ridiculous post.
I encourage anyone who have any doubts that this is fake to use the search engine of their choice to simply search for the "switchers" keywords mentioned here (updateabobeflashksw & windowsksw, the third is too generic) and report back wth impressions.
I know it's fake. But, there was a period of time when for Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, it could take many hours to check for updates. There were updates you could manually download and install to fix it. http://wu.krelay.de/en/
I have run into this issue where prerequisite KBs are needed but this was always well documented. In my 25+ years experience dealing with Windows OSes. But who cares about KB articles, no one reads them because issues are always a great opportunity for whiners to grab some attention they lack in real life. It's a dangerous thing, I have seen many times how otherwise knowledgable people fall for false claims because they are suggestive. This is especially valid for online forums, where there is a big chance that the first reply will set the tone of the entire thread, no matter how wrong it is. All it has to be is suggestive. It's a bug in human design and because of it threads like this should be dealt with swiftly and without mercy. There is no "maybe". I'm done now, as I don't want to add to the post count of this nonsense.
Wow. Thanks for the page reference. There are some 8 units I know that have been left behind on this end for common updates - rollups. Maybe can catch those up too.
The issue with updates was a real one. I could do a clean install of Windows, then run Windows Update and even after letting it run overnight, it would still be searching for updates in the morning. I saw it firsthand on a number of different computers and there were quite a few posts about it here ,from myself and others.
I get what you're saying. But sometimes things just don't happen automatically like they did in the past. Most users are used to just clicking on "Next" hoping that everything will sort itself out in the end. That's your average Windows user. But the OS got much more complicated thoughout the years, and it's getting more complicated. There is an increasing need for a proactive use of operating system, and by that I mean reading the documentation. In this case Knowledge Base articles - before you install the update. [EDIT]I recently had a case where everything apparently looked fine after an update, while it was not. It's related to the KBs in your link, Servicing Stack, but it's for W10.
When it comes to Windows Update, in my case anyway, everything just works these days. I can do a clean install of Windows 7, 8.1 or 10, run Windows Update, check for and install any updates it finds, reboot and then install any remaining updates. I can keep installing updates and rebooting, until there are there no updates left (other than for example, some optional updates I may choose not to install) and everything will work just fine. Sometimes in Windows 7, Windows Update will give me error when install some updates, but just rebooting will fix that.
Find it strange and at the same time this user base is very thankful. Never even made it to Win 7. Lagged on XP then 8. In tons of current articles gone over lately there's extremely very little mention of Windows 8-8.1 in spite of the fact (including this great updates/rollups thread), Windows 8 still garners some useful support (to a point I assume) and feel (just like 7 users) we're flying well past all the issues and aggravations the rest of the Windows world are running into anymore.
On win7 I had various issues (easily fixable but still annoying), however in win10, having issues is quite rare.