windows update just seems to hang while checking.

[Vistaar]

Hello all,

Been monitoring this thread as recommended, and just to make sure, what is the official download link
for the November 2016 Windows Update Standalone Installer for Vista64?

It's still Microsoft Update Catalog.

 

[beginner64]

It's still Microsoft Update Catalog.

Thanks for the link Vistaar.

- Downloaded and installed the standalone installer successfully.

- Checked for Windows Updates manually and within about 20 minutes was notified of 12 available important/recommended updates.

- Downloaded and installed those updates successfully and it seems the OS currently is up-to-date. Thanks again.

 

[Vistaar]

within about 20 minutes was notified of 12 available important/recommended updates.

That's faster than a speeding bullet! I wonder how much RAM your 64-bit system has?

 

[beginner64]

That's faster than a speeding bullet! I wonder how much RAM your 64-bit system has?

My OS has 4 GB of RAM.
From what I understand, 64-bit systems usually make efficient use of all available RAM.

 

[lmacri]

Just an FYI for Vista1972, Vistaar and any other early testers before the December 2016 Patch Tuesday updates are released tomorrow:

There have been several posts in the MS Answers forum by user VolumeZ insisting that pre-installing both the monthly cumulative update for IE9 along with Dalai's recommended Windows kernel mode driver update (Win32K.sys) speed up patch will achieve a significant decrease in the "Checking for updates..." hangs on Patch Tuesdays (i.e., versus pre-installing the Win32K.sys speed up patch alone).

The results he posted 21-Nov-2016 <here> in m#l's thread Updates not working, it has been searching for updates for hours are somewhat suspect - from what I've been able to gather his Vista machine is actually a 64-bit virtual machine (VM) running on a relatively powerful host machine with a fast CPU and lots of RAM - so I'll let other users decide for themselves if his evidence is compelling enough to warrant further investigation.

I wasn't able achieve a significant reduction in the "Checking for updates..." hang on my own 32-bit Vista machine when I tested his theory. My test results posted <here> show that I only decreased my November 2016 Windows Update by 10 minutes - from 1 hour 30 min with the Win32K.sys speed up patch pre-installed down to to 1 hour 20 min when I pre-installed both the Win32K.sys and IE9 .msu installers. VolumeZ had to post a retraction <here> in July 2016 when another one of his "magic" combinations of KB updates didn't hold up to closer scrutiny, but I don't want to let any personal bias dissuade someone else from testing his hypothesis if there's any validity to his claim.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v50.0.2 * NIS v22.8.1.14 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

 

[sant14]

the December 2016 Patch Tuesday updates

Pre-installing KB3204723 (Microsoft Security Bulletin MS16-151) first,

Microsoft Update Catalog

Pre-installing KB3204724 (Microsoft Security Bulletin MS16-146) second,

Microsoft Update Catalog


rebooting,
and running Windows Update

 

[Vistaar]

@ sant14: It would be interesting to know how long it took to check for other updates after pre-installing those two.

The latest Security Update for Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers released today is indeed KB3204723, and it can indeed be found at Microsoft Update Catalog.

Of course I already had all Windows updates from November and earlier, and I was able to get all December 13 updates after pre-installing only KB3204723. (I would have to look up the other update mentioned by sant14 before commenting on it.) The bad news is that it took about an hour and a half just to check for today's other updates (plus two minutes to download and nine minutes to install). Just two months ago, it only took 35 minutes to check for the remaining updates; so the situation continues to worsen. My system is pretty high-spec for 32 bit, but those running 64-bit Vista might get their updates more quickly. (MSRT was found to be "not needed," which has happened to me before.)



I'm seriously considering declaring my own "end of support" for Microsoft and their lousy security updates now.

 

[lmacri]

The latest Security Update for Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers released today is indeed KB3204723, and it can indeed be found at Microsoft Update Catalog ....

...The bad news is that it took about an hour and a half just to check for today's other updates (plus two minutes to download and nine minutes to install). ...(MSRT was found to be "not needed," which has happened to me before.)

Hi Vistaar:

Thanks again for the early feedback. My 32-bit Vista SP2 laptop was also fully patched as of November 2016, and after pre-installing KB3204723 the Windows Update for my December 2016 Patch Tuesday update was very similar to yours - 1 hr 55 min in total (including 1 hr 35 min for the initial "Checking for updates..." phase) to install 14 important updates, including this month's MSRT. That's about 30 min slower than last month.

I looked at the KB3204724 and KB3205638 updates also suggested on Dalai's webpage at http://wu.krelay.de/en/ (both were included in MS16-146: Description of the security update for Microsoft graphics component: December 13, 2016) and neither looked like they would have a big impact on the speed of Windows Update. The file manifests show that KB3204724 and KB3205638 each only update single files (Gdi32.dll and User32.dll, respectively) and the supersedence chains in the Microsoft Update Catalog showed that neither of these updates replaces any of the recommended speed up patches from previous months, so I also decided not to bother pre-instaling either of these updates.

I also ran a test to see if pre-installing KB3203621 (MS16-144: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer: December 13, 2016) along with this month's Win32K.sys speed up path KB3204723 could significantly reduce this month's Windows Update, but like last month's test, this combination only reduced my Windows Update a further 5 or 10 minutes.

In summary, I've gone ahead and revised my step-by-step instructions in m#l's thread Updates not working, it has been searching for updates for hours in the MS Answers forum. This month's recommended speed up patch KB3204723 (MS16-151: Description of the security update for Windows kernel-mode drivers: December 13, 2016) now replaces KB3198234 (rel. 08-Nov-2016) on the full list of six Win32K.sys updates that must be pre-installed on a system with a fresh re-install of Vista SP2. As of 13-Dec-2016, that full list is now: KB3078601 (rel. 18-Aug-2015); KB3109094 (rel. 07-Dec-2015); KB3185911 (rel. 13-Sep-2016); KB3191203 (rel. 11-Oct-2016); KB3203859 (rel. 08-Nov-2016); KB3204723 (rel. 13-Dec-2016).
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v50.1.0 * NIS v22.8.1.14 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

 

[townsbg]

I haven't updated my VM since October and I've been trying all weekend to get it updated with no success. I'll try the latest manual update tomorrow.

 

[VFN]

About 30 minutes to be notified after the pre-installs and the download and installation was no problem. Thanks to sant14 and everyone else on this forum who have made my computing easier. One of the great things about the internet are sites like this one and the people on them.

 

[sant14]

@ sant14: It would be interesting to know how long it took to check for other updates after pre-installing those two.

The latest Security Update for Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers released today is indeed KB3204723, and it can indeed be found at Microsoft Update Catalog.

Of course I already had all Windows updates from November and earlier, and I was able to get all December 13 updates after pre-installing only KB3204723. (I would have to look up the other update mentioned by sant14 before commenting on it.) The bad news is that it took about an hour and a half just to check for today's other updates (plus two minutes to download and nine minutes to install). Just two months ago, it only took 35 minutes to check for the remaining updates; so the situation continues to worsen. My system is pretty high-spec for 32 bit, but those running 64-bit Vista might get their updates more quickly. (MSRT was found to be "not needed," which has happened to me before.)

View attachment 29423

I'm seriously considering declaring my own "end of support" for Microsoft and their lousy security updates now.

It took to check for other updates after pre-installing, 50 minutes. And it found 15 updates.

 

[lmacri]

Of course I already had all Windows updates from November and earlier, and I was able to get all December 13 updates after pre-installing only KB3204723. (I would have to look up the other update mentioned by sant14 before commenting on it.) The bad news is that it took about an hour and a half just to check for today's other updates (plus two minutes to download and nine minutes to install). Just two months ago, it only took 35 minutes to check for the remaining updates; so the situation continues to worsen.

Hi Vistaar:

You and I both received three updates (KB3128020 / KB3128022 / KB3128024) related to the Office Compatibility Pack (i.e., an add-on for older MS Office versions that allows users to open/convert .docx, .xlsx, etc. files created with MS Office 2007 and higher) with our December 2016 Patch Tuesday updates, and both our "Checking for updates..." searches ran for about 90 min this month. I have Microsoft Update enabled (Windows Update | Change settings | Microsoft Update | Give me updates for Microsoft products and check for new optional Microsoft software when I update Windows) to search for security updates for Microsoft products like MS Office, MS Silverlight, etc., and I assume you do as well.

Here's the 14 important updates I received after pre-installing this month's KB3204723 speed up patch.



I've checked with a few 32-bit Vista SP2 users who told me that their Windows Update ran relatively quickly this month after installing KB3204723, and so far all of them have confirmed that they either have Microsoft Update disabled or don't have MS Office installed on their computer. See Dredredre's response to my post # 263 in the bleepingcomputer thread Windows Vista Update Hangs at "Checking For Updates" for one example.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v50.1.0 * NIS v22.8.1.14 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

 

[townsbg]

I've been checking for 2 hours since installing the update mentioned and still no updates. I've wondered if office is a factor since I don't have 2008 on it and update check completes after only 30 minutes or so. The only other thing I can think about is that 2008 is higher up on a queue. I grow tired of having my computer run day and night for updates. I've stopped doing that but it still isn't getting done so I'll leave it running tonight. Any idea on the usual hardware configurations for those with short check times? I have 8 gb of ram and have assigned 2 to the VM. I also have a quad core I3 with 2 cores assigned to Vista. Should I increase the cores or memory?

 

[Metiiin]

I cant figure out what updates I need to get windows update working again. I am currently doing maintenance on two computers with the same issue. One was fixed by following Dalai's guide, the other is still having issues.
Could anyone help me out with finding the specific solution? The computer Im repairing has Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 with an Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T5250. Is this issue related at all to the 100% load on CPU by svchost?

Thanks in advance.

 

[lmacri]

I cant figure out what updates I need to get windows update working again. I am currently doing maintenance on two computers with the same issue. One was fixed by following Dalai's guide, the other is still having issues.

Could anyone help me out with finding the specific solution? The computer Im repairing has Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 with an Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T5250. Is this issue related at all to the 100% load on CPU by svchost?

Hi Metiiin:

I'm not sure why, but it appears your last successful Windows Update on 21-Aug-2016 was only able to patch you up to April 2016.

You've manually installed your December 2016 speed up patch KB3204723 but it looks like you're still missing other required speed up patches from previous months. I'd suggest you follow the step-by-step instructions on page 1 of m#l's thread Updates not working, it has been searching for updates for hours in the MS Answers forum. When you reach STEP # 3 of those instructions I suspect you'll find that you're also missing the Win32K.sys speed up patches KB3185911 (rel. 13-Sep-2016), KB3191203 (rel. 11-Oct-2016) and KB3203859 (rel. 08-Nov-2016).

When Windows Update hangs at "Checking for updates..." users typically see one core of their CPU completely saturated (e.g., 50% CPU consumption with a dual core CPU) by the host process svchost.exe. All that CPU is consumed by the Windows Update service (wuauserv), and more specifically by a thread for the Windows Update Agent (wuaueng.dll) - see Kayla77's thread Processes in Task Manager during updates. I would only expect the Windows Update Agent to consume 100% of your available CPU if you had a single core CPU, so you might want to use a utility like Sysinternal's Process Explorer to see what specific processes are running under svchost.exe and consuming CPU while Windows Update is running.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v50.1.0 * NIS v22.8.1.14 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

 

[Vistaar]

I've checked with a few 32-bit Vista SP2 users who told me that their Windows Update ran relatively quickly this month after installing KB3204723, and so far all of them have confirmed that they either have Microsoft Update disabled or don't have MS Office installed on their computer.

If you are suggesting turning off Microsoft Update, I did experiment with that at an earlier stage of the "slow checking for updates" issue before Dalai's workaround appeared on the scene. There is no reason to doubt that "fewer updates to check for" would mean "less time spent checking for updates," but any time gained would likely be lost if you then turn Microsoft Update back on and check for updates again. If you turn off Microsoft Update, the setting actually disappears from the Windows Update user interface, and you must click the link and accept the EULA to turn it back on. The link will open in IE even if it is not the default browser. For those who haven't bothered to install IE 9, an interesting question is whether the link still supports earlier versions (one would hope so, but I have no easy way to test).

Regarding Metiiin's issue, that does not appear to be the same problem discussed in this thread at all; so attempting the same solution will quite possibly prove to be a waste of time. A similar screenshot was posted by wither 3 several days ago (https://www.vistax64.com/windows-up...home-premium-64-bit-computer.html#post1408599). In my opinion, Windows Update is broken in those screenshots; whereas the issue discussed in this thread is "normal" (i.e. a natural consequence of what Microsoft has given us to work with, flawed though it may be). If it was me, I would recover from my backup image. (I hesitate to suggest reinstalling Vista these days.)

 

[lmacri]

If you are suggesting turning off Microsoft Update, I did experiment with that at an earlier stage of the "slow checking for updates" issue before Dalai's workaround appeared on the scene.

Hi Vistaar:

No, I'm not suggesting that anyone turn off Microsoft Update, but I did revise Note 6 at the bottom of my step-by-step instructions in m#l's thread Updates not working, it has been searching for updates for hours to include a warning for users with supported versions of MS Office 2007 or higher who still receive security updates for their MS Office product on Patch Tuesdays. I'm only recommending that users with MS Office products installed on their Vista SP2 machine should be prepared to let Windows Updates for a few extra hours after they install their Win32K.sys speed up patch(es) - at least until we know for certain what caused the large jump in the "Checking for updates..." hangs in recent months. Please see the comment I posted <here> this morning in m#l's thread.

I also recall running a test with Microsoft Update disabled and it didn't have a significant impact on my "Checking for updates...." hang, but my legacy MS Office Professional 2003 reached the end of extended support in 2014 and I only receive monthly updates for the Office Compatibility Pack. Like you, I also tested the effect of Microsoft Update several months ago before I started using Dalai's workaround to pre-install Win32K.sys speed up patches. We're only a few months away from the 11-Apr-2017 end of extended support for Vista SP2, so I doubt I'll bother repeating that test when the January 2017 Patch updates are released.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v50.1.0 * NIS v22.8.1.14 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

 

[bzbox]

Hi, I'm not quite new here, since I've been following this forum for Vista updates problem. Every time all worked fine for me, but not this time. Here is the deal:

I pre-installed the speed up update and restarted, then checking for updates went for about an hour and a little icon appeared in taskbar saying "new updates are available" but checking for updates were still going on and 50% cpu was still consumed.
After that I stopped the WU service and voila, 12 new updates found.
Problem? WU agent says last time updates were checked 11.12.2016 and I cannot install the new updates (svchost.exe (netsvcs) eats 50% cpu again and nothing happens).
Any suggestions? I restarted my computer and in few seconds small WU icon in taskbar reappeard with 12 updates ready to install and few minutes later svchost.exe (netsvcs) started to eat 50%.
I bet no one had this kind of problem this month?

 

[townsbg]

Well I ran mine last night all night and no updates.

 

[Vistaar]

@bzbox: Welcome to Vista Forums! You're just in time for the apocalypse. I would suggest System Restore.