Has Microsoft already crippled Windows 7?

A friend gave me his sons Laptop  because it was slow and not working very well. Worst problem was no Wi Fi.  
Specs HP 15 AMD A8 6410 2.00 GHz. 4 Gig RAM, 600 Gig HD ( probably 5400) 2+ years old. 
Running windows 7 Home Premium. SP 1. 64 bit. 
He is a student and needs it at college coming up soon. Ya we all know what students can do to a laptop, but it was actually clean of anything obviously nasty. iTunes, and a bunch of school documents and web links. 
It was running Kaspersky,  I think he did that after his McAfee timed out. 
I uninstalled it. 
The wireless adapter worked saw my router etc,  but after you entered the password nothing happened. 
I plugged it in to a LAN so the internet was working. I also installed a Dlink USB wireless adapter and that also worked. 
 
First thing I noticed was Windows Update was last updated May 2016. 
I tried to run it but get an error 80244o2F   When you click the link to "get help with this error" a help page pops up saying "0 results for Windows update 8024402F  dt000"  ?? 
So I Google error 8024402F and there is the Windows community and a bunch of "fixes" seems over 3,300 people had this same problem!! The Microsoft links were all dead end pages? Or if a tool was there it would not run after downloading. 
One notice say's this is because your having trouble connecting to the windows update server, and it might be your firewall or your anti virus. Well there was no anti virus, but might be some leftover registry entries, I tried to run the recommended removal tools for both McAfee and Kaspersky and after downloading them they BOTH said the files where corrupted and would not work. ?? These were from the vendors websites? 
 
I installed Malwarebytes and ran the full trail vrsion,, found 0
Installed and ran CC cleaner full trial version zip. 
 I downloaded Security essentials and it took 4 hours to update, it shows alls well too.  
Windows Defender was also installed and would not update, I disabled it. 
I downloaded a few Windows updates directly and they installed no problem. But the wireless adapter was still not working. 
Ya I tried re installing the driver first thing. 
 
So I backed up all his files and hit the big re install Windows button. 
All went well and I had a factory re set with an almost empty desktop. 
Interesting, opened msconfig and iTunes was still there??? 
So that was not a full re do HP...what's with that? 
I had to re install iTunes and everything  as there was no sign of any of the software from before.,, but why are things still lurking? Never had that before. 
So I ran Malwarebytes and found nothing. 
 
Anyhow this fixed the Wi Fi and everything seems to work fine. The computer is much more responsive and seems up to snuff.
 
BUT, Windows update still shows the error and won't download or install updates. I left it running for 2 days, I re booted a dozen times.. nothing. 
I'm now downloading some package called "all supported x64 based systems Windows 7 SP 1". It has been 3 hours and only 1 MB of a 10 MB file has downloaded. ??
 
In my reading of all the notices and comments many are saying that Windows 7 die hards are being locked out of the Windows update servers. I can totally believe this. 
So any Windows 7 peeps here?  and have you tried a fresh install lately? 
 

I tried to download that "fix it" but the web page is now gone.  A lot of Microsoft links are dead ends. 
Oh well, you're all probably right and windows update is not important, all the drivers are up to date and that's most important. 
Because he was offline since May he missed the Windows 10 nags. 
 

I have a friend who's laptop had Windows 7 on it, and the hard drive went belly up.  I installed Windows 7 again, using his product key, and it installed no problem.
 
I was completely unable to get any Windows Updates to be returned from searching, even leaving it searching for 3 days.  I had this issue using Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Ultimate, both x64.
 
I concluded Windows 7 could not be properly reloaded and used, due to a lack of ability to bring it to patch current levels, if starting from a base product install disc (with SP1). No updates after SP1 were able to be located through searching with Windows Update, and that to me meant I could not recommend my friend to continue to use Windows 7 - it has too many unpatched security holes in it that cannot be fixed.
 
To me, Windows 7 is dead, and I am done dealing with it. (I had long ago moved on to Windows 8.1, and now to Windows 10, but I DO repair/reload computers for folks now and then, so I see Windows 7 fairly frequently).
 
Bob Bone

All of my pcs (win 7) abruptly stopped running updates on Feb 21. I noticed this when my main family pc slowed to a crawl. I traced this to a syvhost process running at nearly 100% non stop. Using google, I found how to track this process to the service it was tied to and it was the windows updater. So I suspect the pc was locked in perpetual motion trying to update. I did not see this behavior on my other pcs.
 
So I disabled the updater in Services, I believe. It immediately enabled itself again and became bogged down. So then I turned off windows update and it was fine.
 
I also previously attempted to run the updates on all the machines to no avail. On the family pc, I downloaded (from online recommendations) a tool from Microsoft that was supposed to fix the updater. I ran it and it said there were three problems. Two missing or corrupted files which it fixed and an inability ot download updates from the Microsoft server which it could not fix.
 
Again, as I said I turned it off.
 
The day after the win 10 update period had expired, all my machines downloaded the now many accumulated and recommended updates and installed them. Note, I had my other pcs set to notify but do not download.
 
All three successfully installed and have been through a couple of additional updates.
 
My faith in humanity, government and most private institutions is now irreversibly shaken if not destroyed. There is no value in anything outside of home, family, music and one's core spiritual beliefs. We are all pawns.
 

The same evening my updates installed on my family pc, my new canon pixma printer quick working giving an error message which said I had to send it in due to hardware failure. I reinstalled the drivers and it worked, but once I shut if off I got the same message on restart. I reinstalled again and have kept the printer on. Again, I suspect it should only be a matter of time before my entire studio is disrupted with loud pro gov't messages and the repetitive  sound of the proverbial Nelson character, hah-hah, hah-hah, hah-hah!

Everything about Windows 7/8.1 updates changes from October 2016 onwards ...
 
Monthly rollups only.  Sort of like the Windows 10 method.
 
From October 2016 onwards, Windows will release a single Monthly Rollup that addresses both security issues and reliability issues in a single update. The Monthly Rollup will be published to Windows Update (WU), WSUS, SCCM, and the Microsoft Update Catalog. Each month’s rollup will supersede the previous month’s rollup, so there will always be only one update required for your Windows PCs to get current. i.e. a Monthly Rollup in October 2016 will include all updates for October, while November 2016 will include October and November updates, and so on.
 
https://blogs.technet.mic...ows-7-and-windows-8-1/

Thanks for the feedback folks, Most of you are confirming what I have gathered about this issue.
Widows Update server is super slow.
Windows 7 Updates have been a mess for a while now. 
A fresh install of W7 SP1 is stuck in the mud.
 
I'm not going to spend any more time on his laptop, I'm doing this as a favour, I'll explain this to him and he can either deal with it or now pay to upgrade to W10. Hmm, looks like $150 Can for the Home version.  I think he can buy a new laptop with better specs than his for double that. I see one at the Source for $299. But his is working 100% and is running fast enough considering the hard drive and processor. Takes over a minute to boot. Not used to that anymore :)  
 
I have Windows 7 on 2 computers still. One is my old DAW that I haven't even turned on for 6 months. I don't care about the updates for that machine as it works 100% and is never going to be on line. It's just an emergency back up. It would not run W 10 I don't think, Only a 2 core 2.4Mhz. 4 Gigs RAM.  Super computer 10 years ago.
 
I also run W7 Ultimate on a laptop I use for live recording. I do use it on line sometimes and it was up to date as far as I know. It occasionally installed updates. Seems fine, it was a Vista system so I'd be pushing my luck to go higher than 7.
 
I think the issue is if you do a fresh install and the version you use is SP1.
My ultimate dvd install used to take 4 rounds over a few days to finally settle down.