windows update just seems to hang while checking.

[Vistaar]

Vistaar how where your misadventures?

Satisfactory. I forgot to carefully note the time when I began checking for Windows updates after pre-installing KB3177725, but it took less than half an hour, and I didn't have any failed updates this month. I don't know why Vista1972's experience was so much worse this month.

 

[Vista1972]

Satisfactory. I forgot to carefully note the time when I began checking for Windows updates after pre-installing KB3177725, but it took less than half an hour, and I didn't have any failed updates this month. I don't know why Vista1972's experience was so much worse this month.

I expected an outcome similar to yours but something went awry?!? I ended up with 4 vista updates & 6 for office 2007. Hey...there's always next month!

 

[lmacri]

Satisfactory. I forgot to carefully note the time when I began checking for Windows updates after pre-installing KB3177725, but it took less than half an hour, and I didn't have any failed updates this month. I don't know why Vista1972's experience was so much worse this month.

Dalai's workaround at http://wu.krelay.de/en/ also improved the speed of Windows Update for my August 2016 Patch Tuesday updates. I was fully patched as of July 2016 so KB3177725 (MS16-098: Security Update for Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers: August 9, 2016) was the only Win32K.sys update listed on Dalai's webpage that was missing from my system. This workaround reduced the initial "Checking for updates..." hang on my 32-bit Vista machine from several hours down to about 25 min, and the entire Windows Update session ran to completion in about 45 min. The screenshot of my CPU consumption shows "Checking for updates..." running between the 60 and 30 min marks, while the download and installation of 7 important updates (2 for Vista, 1 for IE9, 3 for MS Office, 1 for the Aug 2016 Malicious Software Removal Tool) and MSRT scan ran between the 30 and 15 min marks.



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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v48.0 * NIS v22.7.0.76 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

 

[VFN]

New Security Update for Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers (KB3177725). I pre-installed it, and I'm currently checking for other Windows updates.

32 bit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53445

64 bit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53469

Thanks, worked for me. Should add that for the last several 2nd Tuesdays updates seem lower in number than they used to be.

 

[townsbg]

My update check took ~1.5 hours even with the manual install of 317775 plus another 1.5 or so to download. I was stuck for quite some time at 0kb something which previously only happened on 7. I'd say that the update didn't help.

 

[Old Spilly]

My update check took ~1.5 hours even with the manual install of 317775 plus another 1.5 or so to download. I was stuck for quite some time at 0kb something which previously only happened on 7. I'd say that the update didn't help.

I've just fixed TWO Vista boxes with this bug. My after Dalai Update checks too were well over 1 hr each time on each machine. I guess that scan time must be dependent on the number of patches already installed. Both my laptops had 650 patches apiece. Before I'd discovered Dalai's procedure, I had left one machine checking for nearly 24 hours and it never finished.
In future I'll be more cautious about restore to Factory Settings if it's back to Vista SP1 in 2009!!

Thank you all for this life-saving thread. You have just saved two more families from throwing away slow but otherwise working machines.

Spilly

 

[townsbg]

Has anyone been keeping up with the patches that should be installed manually?

 

[lmacri]

Has anyone been keeping up with the patches that should be installed manually?

Hi townsbg:

As always, the list of Windows kernel-mode driver (Win32K.sys) updates that need to be pre-installed manually before running Windows Update is maintained by Dalai on his webpage at Search for Windows Updates takes forever? - A possible solution (http://wu.krelay.de/en/). Dalai revises that list every Patch Tuesday (the second Tuesday of the month). There are currently six required Win32K.sys updates listed for Vista SP2 including the latest KB3177725 (MS16-098: Security Update for Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers: August 9, 2016) that was added for the August 2016 Patch Tuesday updates.

The current list on Dalai's webpage is: KB3078601 (rel. 18-Aug-2015); KB3109094 (rel. 07-Dec-2015); KB3145739 (rel. 12-Apr-2016); KB3164033 (rel. 14-Jun-2016); KB3168965 (rel. 12-Jul-2016); KB3177725 (rel. 09-Aug-2016). You only have to install the updates that are missing from you system, so users who were fully patched as of the end of July 2016 should only have to manually install KB3177725 before they run Windows Update to install their August 2016 Patch Tuesday updates. Step-by-step instructions for installing any missing Win32K.sys updates were posted 16-Jun-2016 in in m#l's thread Updates not working, it has been searching for updates for hours in the MS Answers forum for non-technical users who are not familiar with the process of installing standalone update packages (.msu files).

If you were asking if any users have been following Dalai's workaround for the past few months, then yes, Vistaar, Vista1972 and other users (including myself) have been posting feedback in this thread on a regular basis.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v48.0 * NIS v22.7.0.76 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

 

[Autobahn]

Installed KB3177725, restarted laptop, and within 30 minutes all was done!
Excellent!

 

[electrojim]

Re: windows update just seems to hang while checking. Fixed itself!

Hey, everyone, I've been paying attention to this thread and similar ones on other groups as I have had the same problem exactly. I do recall that some months ago this same thing happened to me, but it cleared itself and found the updates it was talking about, installed them and that was that. But as of about 4 days ago I had this same problem exactly: 1) an icon in the Notification Area, saying updates are available; 2) click on the icon and the Updates window comes up and says 'searching for updates,' and the Windows Update utility shows as running constantly in Task Manager, 3) but updates are never located nor, of course, installed. After three days of this I began to get nervous and started looking around for answers.

Some of the answers I found involved installing KB updates manually, which I suppose I could do, but then I'm a bit lazy. Others wanted me to go into the dreaded Registry, which I try to avoid at all costs. So I did nothing, except to become more agitated as time went on.

One suggestion I came across was from a guy who said he merely made Internet Explorer his default browser, and this same problem that he was having rectified itself in short order. That was an easy thing to do, so I abandoned Firefox and checked the little box that makes IE9 my default.

Now this may well be merely coincidence, but within a couple of hours I had eleven 'important' updates to install. I went ahead and did it, they did indeed install, and everything seemed just fine, except that the little icon was still in the Notification Area. I clicked on it and, lo and behold, there was one more update, some junk mail rules KB for Outlook, which I don't even use. What the heck, it was only 3+ Megs so I downloaded and installed it anyway. But wait, that's not all. Even after it was successfully installed, the icon in the tray persisted. Guess what? Windows Update wanted to install that same junk mail filter again! "Okay," I said to the monitor, "knock yourself out" and let it install a second time... shown as 'successful' yet again in the list of installed updates.

Now the icon is gone and Windows Update is no longer running constantly. Now I'll go back and make Firefox my default browser, whether that had anything to do with this or not.

 

[Autobahn]

@electrojim: My browser is Firefox and as said above, after installing KB3177725 and restarting the rest went quite quickly.

 

[Vistaar]

Re: windows update just seems to hang while checking. Fixed itself!

One suggestion I came across was from a guy who said he merely made Internet Explorer his default browser, and this same problem that he was having rectified itself in short order. That was an easy thing to do, so I abandoned Firefox and checked the little box that makes IE9 my default. Now this may well be merely coincidence, but within a couple of hours I had eleven 'important' updates to install.

Hello electrojim, that's interesting. Could you post a link to where you came across that suggestion? I tend to agree that it "may well be merely coincidence." Granted, "a couple of hours" is relatively good these days; but those of us using Dalai's workaround (i.e. pre-installing Windows kernel-mode driver updates) are getting our remaining updates quicker than that (see Autobahn's post just above yours.) Of course just one year ago, 30 minutes was regarded as terrible (see early pages of this thread).

 

[electrojim]

Re: windows update just seems to hang while checking. Fixed itself!

Hello electrojim, that's interesting. Could you post a link to where you came across that suggestion? I tend to agree that it "may well be merely coincidence." Granted, "a couple of hours" is relatively good these days; but those of us using Dalai's workaround (i.e. pre-installing Windows kernel-mode driver updates) are getting our remaining updates quicker than that (see Autobahn's post just above yours.) Of course just one year ago, 30 minutes was regarded as terrible (see early pages of this thread).

Oh, gosh, Vistaar, I'd have to go through the search for the answer to the problem all over again. I just read everything I could find and simply recall that 'simple fix,' if indeed it was that. I do know that with a Web search it came up pretty quickly, so it's probably on one of the forums at the top of the search options using Google or whatever (I use Duck duck go).

Hey, just checked my cache from yesterday and found this thread:
Vista Windows Update - Forums - CNET
the last entry there is either the one I saw, or similar to what prompted me to change my default. It seems the one that motivated me was more to-the-point than this, but I can't find it. Again, this guy's experience might have been a coincidence too.

 

[lmacri]

Re: windows update just seems to hang while checking. Fixed itself!

I do recall that some months ago this same thing happened to me, but it cleared itself and found the updates it was talking about, installed them and that was that. But as of about 4 days ago I had this same problem exactly:...

...Now this may well be merely coincidence, but within a couple of hours I had eleven 'important' updates to install. I went ahead and did it, they did indeed install, and everything seemed just fine...

Now the icon is gone and Windows Update is no longer running constantly. Now I'll go back and make Firefox my default browser, whether that had anything to do with this or not.

Hi electrojim:

From the step-by-step instructions posted 16-Jun-2016 in in m#l's thread Updates not working, it has been searching for updates for hours in the MS Answers forum:

"Some users find that "Checking for updates..." will eventually run to completion if you let it run for several hours, but there is also a workaround posted on Dalai's webpage Search for Windows Updates takes forever? - A possible solution at http://wu.krelay.de/en/ that works for most affected users."

Many Vista users who have automatic Windows Update running in the background observe that Windows Update will eventually find and install Patch Tuesday updates. Dalai's workaround to pre-install the monthly Windows kernel-mode driver (Win32K.sys) update is intended for users who want to speed up their Patch Tuesday updates because they don't want Windows Update running constantly and consuming large amounts of CPU (and possibly overheating their CPU chip). Users who have recently performed a fresh reinstall of Vista SP2 and have over 200 pending updates often find that Windows Update never runs to completion, regardless of how long they leave it running.

I use Firefox as my default browser and I doubt switching to this browser will make a significant difference next month. The August 2016 Patch Tuesday updates were posted on the Microsoft servers five days ago on 09-Aug-2016 (i.e., the second Tuesday of the month), and I suspect your July and August 2016 Patch Tuesday updates were running in the background for several hours (or even days) on your machine before you were notified that updates were ready for installation.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v48.0 * NIS v22.7.0.76 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

 

[Vistaar]

Re: windows update just seems to hang while checking. Fixed itself!

checked my cache from yesterday and found this thread: Vista Windows Update - Forums - CNET

I agree that those running Vista should have IE 9 installed (IE 7 and 8 are unsupported and therefore dangerous); but like Imacri, I doubt that Windows Update is affected by your choice of default browser. The first reply to that CNET thread contains a statement so wrong that it must be contradicted: "There is no single cause or cure outside of a reload of the OS." One thing we learned from OP ScousaJAY was that reinstalling Vista does NOT cure the issue discussed in this thread! It would seem to follow quite logically that there is nothing wrong with our systems! Something changed at Microsoft's end (probably related to Windows 10), and they have provided updates for Windows 7 that were specifically intended to fix this very issue - but alas, no Windows Update Agent updates for Vista.

 

[VFN]

Re: windows update just seems to hang while checking. Fixed itself!

Now this may well be merely coincidence, but within a couple of hours...

A couple of hours is better than what you had but it's still a long time to get updates.

 

[JudyJetson]

Hi all, this is my first post here. I found this thread last month when I was having a problem installing updates. I was able to install them by turning off automatic updates and then clicking on the 32 bit required update link and installing. This month I tried the same thing for KB3177725 and it did not install. It ran for several hours with no success.

I am not a "techy" person and don't know what to do next. I would greatly appreciate any (easy to follow please!) suggestions. Thanks!

 

[Vistaar]

Welcome to Vista Forums JudyJetson! Assuming that security updates for July and earlier were successfully installed, I suspect that Windows Update was running in the background when you tried to install KB3177725. Keep that standalone installer on hand and try this:

(1) Change Windows Update setting to "Never check for updates" and click "OK."
(2) Restart the PC.
(3) Disconnect the PC from the internet. (This wasn't necessary in my case, but some have reported that it is.)
(4) Run KB3177725 again and restart the PC when requested.
(5) Reconnect the PC to the internet.
(6) Change Windows Update to your preferred setting and it will check for other August security updates.

I think this will work, but post again if it doesn't.

 

[JudyJetson]

Vistaar, thank you so much! I followed your directions exactly and it worked great. Afterwards I was able to run the Windows check updates, and it found and installed an additional 7 updates.

I am wondering if we will have to do this process monthly now, since it has happened in July and August? And I wonder if it is happening for all Windows Vista users?

Again, thanks for your help!

 

[Vistaar]

Sounds good JudyJetson!

I am wondering if we will have to do this process monthly now, since it has happened in July and August? And I wonder if it is happening for all Windows Vista users?

I believe this is happening for all Vista users, although the severity depends partly on your processor and perhaps RAM. And yes, it will probably be a monthly ritual until updates for Windows Vista come to an end next April. An interesting question is, What will happen if there is no Security Update for Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers one of these months? I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.