I don't know if y'all leave your DAW on 24x7 but I don't.  Every week or so I manually run Windows Update for Win7 Pro.  The last time I did it took over 9 hours just to complete the "check for" part of the update.  Yesterday, I ran it again at 5pm and as of 7:30am this morning it still hadn't determined what updates were needed.  Anybody else having this experience?  Is there any way to improve the Windows Update performance for Win7 users?  Is this a Microsoft technique meant to drive us to Win10?
 
I have another Win7 Pro machine I leave up all the time and the automatic Windows Update process is transparent to me.

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/11/02/checking-for-updates-slow-on-windows-7-here-is-the-fix/
 
This forum gets a few dozen hits a day, so looking for help here is not your best bet. Google it. 
 

From posts on the sevenforums.com there are many complaining about Win 7 updates.  I had it on my Win 7 and it would be checking but never got any further.  I tried several of the hacks on the web that claim it will fix the problem but none helped.  One day I started Win 7 (Win 10 is my main OS) and the next thing I knew I had a popup that I had to restart the PC to complete updates. 
 
This has mostly happened in the last year since Win 10 came out.  Some even think Microsoft is doing it intentionally so more will move to Win 10.
 
 

slartabartfast

http://www.ghacks.net/201...ows-7-here-is-the-fix/

Yep, that one fixed the slow Windows 7 updates for me a while back.

FYI: Microsoft has also recently changed it's patching methods for Windows 7 & 8.1, so there are some new things to deal with.
http://www.infoworld.com/...781-patchocalypse.html

But the good news is that there are several strategies for dealing with this new headache discussed here.  For those that have avoided Win 10 so far, heads up!!!
http://www.infoworld.com/...7-and-81-machines.html
 
The bottom line for my PC's is to keep it simple, and not over-think it.  Setup Windows to never check for updates. Then several weeks after they are released, make a disk image backup, then apply all of the new updates.  If everything still works, leave it alone.  Else, roll back to the most recent image  
 

Thanks all for the links and feedback.

Once those updates are applied, Win7 updates proceed much faster.
Without those updates installed, the initial "ping" for Win7 updates can take 12-24 hours.
I can't help but think that MS are perhaps doing this on purpose (to get folks to move to Win10).
The whole "free" upgrade from Win7/Win8 was to try an unify the user-base.

If you ever try installing Win7 on a brand new laptop (no optical drive) and USB-3 only, it's a bit of a PITA.
The solution is to slip-stream the necessary drivers into a new copy of the install disc.
 
New hardware is starting to get pretty far removed from Win7.