kakku
Great! I just tried the Infoworld's tip and it erased the update problem. Thanks again:)

+1
 
Glad to hear you got it sorted!

abacab

kakku
Great! I just tried the Infoworld's tip and it erased the update problem. Thanks again:)

+1
 
Glad to hear you got it sorted!

Thanks. I looked for solutions for my problem but I could not find one that would have solved it.

If you install Win7 (at this point in time)... and go to check for updates, it can literally take ~12 hours for Windows updates to appear.  This was not the case in the past, and I'm guessing it's not complete happen-stance.
MS is trying to influence folks to move to Win10.
 
Installing the hotfixes manually will allow you to work around the issue.
The update process functions normal after doing so...
 
Once Win7 is fully up-to-date, make sure to create a backup image file (prior to installing any software or additional hardware).  This will allow you to quickly reinstall a clean Win7 (including all updates).
 
 

Jim Roseberry
 
Once Win7 is fully up-to-date, make sure to create a backup image file (prior to installing any software or additional hardware).  This will allow you to quickly reinstall a clean Win7 (including all updates).
 

^^^this
 
which also prompts me to check if they have a patched/updated/slipstreamed version available, save all the hoo-ha

Jim Roseberry
If you install Win7 (at this point in time)... and go to check for updates, it can literally take ~12 hours for Windows updates to appear.  This was not the case in the past, and I'm guessing it's not complete happen-stance.
MS is trying to influence folks to move to Win10.
 
Installing the hotfixes manually will allow you to work around the issue.
The update process functions normal after doing so...
 
Once Win7 is fully up-to-date, make sure to create a backup image file (prior to installing any software or additional hardware).  This will allow you to quickly reinstall a clean Win7 (including all updates).
 
 

Thanks for the tips. I will try to make a image of the current fully working state of Windows. I only need to find a good piece software for that.

kakku

Jim Roseberry
If you install Win7 (at this point in time)... and go to check for updates, it can literally take ~12 hours for Windows updates to appear.  This was not the case in the past, and I'm guessing it's not complete happen-stance.
MS is trying to influence folks to move to Win10.
 
Installing the hotfixes manually will allow you to work around the issue.
The update process functions normal after doing so...
 
Once Win7 is fully up-to-date, make sure to create a backup image file (prior to installing any software or additional hardware).  This will allow you to quickly reinstall a clean Win7 (including all updates).
 
 

Thanks for the tips. I will try to make a image of the current fully working state of Windows. I only need to find a good piece software for that.

Macrium Reflect Free will do the job.
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
 
Just offering a solution here.  Others will probably suggest their favorites.  But this one is dependable, popular, with user friendly instructions, and automatically builds the recovery environment with the drivers that you need to restore your system with.
 
It's not a backup plan if you are unable to restore the image

Jim Roseberry
If you install Win7 (at this point in time)... and go to check for updates, it can literally take ~12 hours for Windows updates to appear.  This was not the case in the past, and I'm guessing it's not complete happen-stance.
MS is trying to influence folks to move to Win10.
 
Installing the hotfixes manually will allow you to work around the issue.
The update process functions normal after doing so...
 
Once Win7 is fully up-to-date, make sure to create a backup image file (prior to installing any software or additional hardware).  This will allow you to quickly reinstall a clean Win7 (including all updates).

 
+1
 
Making an image afterwards is the best advice. 
 
Also make sure you have the Win 7 SP-1 DVD to install from initially, or it can be extra painful to update with the service pack first, then all of the years accumulation of updates on top of that.
 
Restoring from a clean image actually takes very little time, depending on your setup as far as disk throughput and size of the image.  Unfortunately if you make major hardware swaps, such as MB & CPU, you may still need to clean install...
 
I just did a clean install recently on my Win 7 machine, and imaged afterwards, because I don't wish to repeat that process any time soon!  This is really handy in case the OS gets borked and you just want to start fresh (the same day).

pwalpwal
 
which also prompts me to check if they have a patched/updated/slipstreamed version available, save all the hoo-ha

Not quite, but you can download the "convenience update" which includes all updates up to April 2016 to speed things up a bit.
 
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3125574
 
AMB
 

Jim Roseberry
If you install Win7 (at this point in time)... and go to check for updates, it can literally take ~12 hours for Windows updates to appear.  This was not the case in the past, and I'm guessing it's not complete happen-stance.
MS is trying to influence folks to move to Win10.
 
Installing the hotfixes manually will allow you to work around the issue.
The update process functions normal after doing so...
 
Once Win7 is fully up-to-date, make sure to create a backup image file (prior to installing any software or additional hardware).  This will allow you to quickly reinstall a clean Win7 (including all updates).
 
 

I just dealt with the same problem on a clean install of Windows 8.1.  The first 850 megs or so of updates went smoothly.  Then it would just be "Checking for Updates" forever.  I eventually got it to work by manually installing one of the updates and then running the "Windows Update Troubleshooter" but it took a while to figure out.  It showed 206 updates were required at 1.2GB!  After that, now everything is working smoothly.
 
There's a lot of advice online on how to handle this problem so be careful.
 
My advice would be:
1) After the clean install, let Windows have a few hours to install drivers, etc without doing any updates.
2) After that, manually run Windows Update over and over until you get to the point where it searches for updates indefinitely (they say an hour online)
3) At that point, search for the "Windows Update troubleshooter" online for your Windows version and run that.  Note that this is a later and better version than the troubleshooter that comes with Windows.  It will probably find and fix errors.  Don't get too excited yet because that might not fix the issue.  Try rebooting and running Windows Update again.
4) If that doesn't work, search the Windows forums.  There are one or two KB updates that address issues with Windows Update but it varies by Windows version.  Install those (you may have to manually kill the Windows Update service to do so.  Go into the "Local Services" management tool in Windows, right click "Windows Update" service and select "Stop"). Otherwise the updates will "Search for Installed Updates" indefinitely. (If you get stuck in this, go to task manager and kill "wupi.exe"). For me it only took one update being manually installed, and I'm not 100% sure that it even was what made the difference. Reboot after installing.
5) After step 4, try steps 2 and 3 again.  That's what ended up working for me.  Eventually I ran the troubleshooter and it went from "Searching for Updates" to showing me 206 available updates.  It was a glorious moment.
 
One other note, I wouldn't recommend manually making any changes to the Windows Update folder in C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution.  The Troubleshooting tool will do that for you.
 
I didn't make a backup image file, although I should have.  I like to live on the wild side :)

rlared
I didn't make a backup image file, although I should have.  I like to live on the wild side :)

If I was planning to keep that hardware for a while, I would rather have a fully patched image to restore from, than to have to repeat a clean install + update.   Windows 8.1 even includes a free imaging utility ...