Question

tom73

New Member
I have Vista Home Premium 64
In windows updates I have "let me know of updates but I will download and install". But for some reason the updates get downloaded and installed, which causes the blue screen. Then I have to do system restore to go back before the updates.
 

My Computer

Welcome to the Forums.

To my way of thinking it is better to disable updates altogether. Then if you find a fix you must have, download and install only that one. Otherwise if something breaks you either restore your way out of it, or go through the updates one by one to winnow down the list to the one that broke the system.

You can spend a lot of time messing with updates to no good purpose. Others may disagree. Currently I run Windows 8 on a Laptop. System Restore never worked right on this machine. So I use Macrium Reflect to back up my system to an image and RollbackRX Pro as a System Restore replacement.

Both of those programs have free versions that are quite usable. The only thing with Rollback is you have to work around defragging your disk and also it needs to be uninstalled before backing up with Macrium. But if you have an image backup with Incremental Backup such as Macrium Reflect Server it cuts the time required way down. I can remove RollbackRX, defrag my drive, do an incremental backup with Macrium, and reinstall Rollback in about 45 minutes. Every couple of weeks I do it just so my Macrium image is not too far behind the current state of the system. I tend to install a lot of small free utilities. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavilion m9515y
    CPU
    Phenom X4 9850
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Some Radeon Cheapie with 512 MB Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    CRT
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    750 GB SATA 3G
    2 SIIG Superspeed docks w/WD Caviar Black Sata II or III
A lot of Windows update problems can be fixed by following the following steps

Go to start search box and type

cmd

Right click and select run as administrator

In the box that opens type

net stop wuauserv

press enter

type

ren c:\windows\softwaredistribution sd.old

press enter

type

net start wuauserv

press enter

restart computer

What this does
Windows updates are kept in a folder called Software Distribution
This series of commands stops Windows update service
Renames the software distribution folder to softwaredistribution.old
restarts the Windows update service

When you restart the computer the software distribution folder is recreated.
Windows will look again for updates
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo Thinkpad T400
    CPU
    Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz
    Motherboard
    LENOVO 64734VM
    Memory
    2.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 531MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family
    Sound Card
    Conexant 20561 SmartAudio HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15 inch
    Screen Resolution
    1280 x 800
    Hard Drives
    1x 180GB Intel 530 series SSD
    1 x 120GB Hitachi 5400rmp
    1 x 650GB Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    1x 1Tb Western Digital Elements 5400rpm
    Internet Speed
    Medium for New Zealand
    Other Info
    Weakest part of my computer is the graphics chipset.
    Only ever used a laptop.
    Also use USB Freeview TV Card
    Lenovo Docking Station
    External Speakers
    Other bits a pieces as needed
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