Yes that particular computer was a huge pain and I hope I never see it again. :p

Well, I kept messing with booting into my Windows 7 drive yesterday and finally ran into the updates issue. When I click on "check for updates" it goes on and on and on and nothing happens. When I downloaded that missing update, it started checking for already installed updates and went on and on and on. Interesting.

While waiting for these operations to finish I did get to play my Alice Madness Returns game. It appears that games that will not install because of the DRM issues are just fine if they were ALREADY installed. I have a couple on my Windows 10 computer which play just fine because they were already installed when I did the upgrade to Windows 10.

I've read that CPU usage can go to 100% during those times.
What could it possibly be doing that would require that much processing power?
It's clear to me that Microsoft has deliberately broken Windows 7 updates.

Windows 7 was supposed to be supported until 2020.
There's no reason for me to trust Microsoft for "support" in the future -- for ANY of their products.

I checked and my CPU usage didn't go up at all while it was doing that. I was able to play Alice Madness Returns with it running in the background. I'm trying to think if I have any people out there who are still running Windows 7. I'm thinking I don't, but I will have to check.

Windows Update is definitely nonfunctional on my computer. This has been a good thread to read, as I have been at a loss since this problem started. I'm still at a loss, but the reason for the problem has been clarified and that helps.

Mine didn't go up to 100%, but it ate up about 1/3 of the processing power -- way more than it should have -- especially for sitting there doing nothing. So the breakage varies with the computer.

I still think it is deliberate -- because Microsoft doesn't want to support more than one OS so this is their way of avoiding their obligation to support their older OS.

SUCCESS!!! I found several answers saying people had success with doing this:

Set Windows Updates to Never Check for Updates.
Download and install KB3172605.
Check for updates and install.
Turn your Windows Updates to your preferred setting.

It worked for me. Before when I clicked on "check for updates," it went on and on and never did anything. Same thing when I downloaded KB3172605... it checked for installed updates and never did anything.

When I set Updates to Never, I rebooted and then tried again with the KB3172605 download. This time everything worked... I did have to wait a long time while it checked installed updates, but after it installed I was able to check for updates and reset it back to check, but let me decide.

Drac, thank you so much for your solution. It is just what I thought needed to be done. Be aware that some have thought they solved it and found that it returns but I'm not sure exactly what they did. I hope your success continues.
I will try it on one of my computers and hope that it works.

I have several updates waiting to be installed for several weeks.

Yes, I read that too. We'll see if this holds...

I just tried your method and Windows Update is working again! I won't assume that the problem is solved for good, but for now I am able to do something that I haven't been able to do since August.

Excellent, Marian! Let's stay in touch here to see if this continues to work or if we have to "reset" Windows Updates again. At least we know Windows 7 Updates isn't completely broken. I was beginning to wonder.

Will do, Drac! I will post if things take a turn for the worse.

One of my computers is working now. I see that one of the updates was the Dec monthly rollup. I set my preference to check and let me decide, but I wonder if that is valid and the only choices are auto or never check.

I've had problems since long before August, starting around the time Microsoft made "updates" that tried to force all computers to download Windows 10.

I did manage to solve the update problem on one Windows 7 computer -- so it took an hour and 15 minutes instead of forever -- but it broke again shortly afterwards.

I'm not wasting any more time on it. My Windows 7 computer is now an offline computer the way my Windows XP computers are.

I have a problem on my second computer. On the first, the update was labeled Win 7 Service pack 1. I wondered if I needed X64, but it worked. My search for the update on the next computer was labeled Win 7 X64. I downloaded it and tried to install but it just continued searching for updates, so I canceled. When I instead tried the first update then (service pack 1), it said "only one instance of WUSA.exe allowed to run", so now I don't know what to do.

x64 is for 64 bit operating systems. If your Windows 7 is a 32 bit sytstem, it probably won't work.

Pokey, Windows 7 SP1 was released in 2011. If you never got that update, you probably won't be able to get anything after that date. You've got to have the SP1 installed first.

I would cancel all updates and reboot. Try to get that SP1 installed and then go from there.

OK, so I rebooted and tried again. The first computer was a 32 bit and this was a 64 bit. I don't know why it seemed stuck searching, but when I tried the second time, it worked rather quickly, so problem solved.
I did get the message that the 32 bit one was not applicable to this computer.

I tried checking for updates and it kept searching, so maybe I still have a problem.

Edit...I turned updates back on in settings and the search worked and found 10 important ones, which installed ok.

Hopefully, you will get your system updated and it will hold.

I started having problems back in july... took forever to work out... haven't looked at carol's computer lately... will do so later today... this is my post from way back then...

Winfreys post

I remember that post now. Be sure to try the method I found if Carol's computer is having problems. It was an easy fix... just hope it holds!