Haven’t tested with 32-bit Windows 7 or with Windows 2008 Server R2 (for which both patches are available). If you're running Windows 7 without SP1, you can only upgrade to the preview. I tested this with a 64-bit Windows 7 SP1 installation. If you're running Windows 8.1 but haven't installed Windows 8.1 Update yet. The second one contains the Windows Update fix. Note: without the first patch, the second one will refuse to install. At this time (again, circa August 2016) the fix seems to be manually downloading and applying these two updates, in this sequence.Īfter applying those patches (in sequence) to a clean Win 7 SP1 install, your initial check for Windows Updates should take less than 20 minutes and should not consume anywhere near 100% of one core. Woody Leonhard suggested a couple additional workaround, neither of which work any more (circa August 2016). That worked for some, for a while, then stopped working.
Many workarounds were proposed, discovered, tested. Subsequently, anyone installing a clean copy of Windows 7 SP1 saw the initial Windows Update consuming 100% of one core, and running indefinitely. In March or April 2016 Microsoft began changing something about the way it’s Windows Update service worked.
