Windows update service not running

I had nearly all the symptoms in this thread, but none of the solutions worked. Dell Win 7 Pro, auto update. I was surprised when I checked my update history and found that it hadn't been updating for several months. There had been no warnings or other indicators. Multiple (incorrect) error messages when I tried the suggestions: no internet connection, service not running, ...

I happened to notice that it quit updating around the same time that I upgraded a drive to 2 TB. Checked for updates at Dell. Found nothing, but I noticed that their driver for Intel Rapid Storage Technology was old. Found a string of newer versions at Intel, but was afraid to upgrade because Dell hadn't, and warnings at Intel to use the manufacturer's versions. Despite that, I updated to the very next version at Intel — still 2 or 3 older than the latest — even with it's ominous warnings during the update. It fixed the problem. Actually, it fixed several problems with other programs too, mostly (incorrect) complaints that the network wasn't connected. It's been running as smooth as silk since.

This sound rather specific, and seemingly unrelated, but nothing else changed between the reboot just before the driver update, and the reboot just after, except that the update problem was fixed.

-- J

Today I tried running windows update and ran into a problem saying that windows update service might not be running and i need to restart my computer but after many restart its still not running.

edit: sorry I forgot to include that info my first post

windows 7 64 bit upgrade from vista 64

Mcafee security center 1 year subcription

I dont shutdown my computer its 24/7 my last windows update install was 01/13/2010. The automatic update service is not in the services.msc

So I spent almost an hour in this post and others trying to solve this exact problem. I was about to do a system restore when I thought I'd try a Google search one more time. I found this article at helpdeskgeek.com& thought I'd give it a try.

It worked like a charm! In my situation, I had to recreate the BITS service because it was completely gone. This article gave me easy step by step instructions on how to do that, as well as correctly formatted commands so I could just copy & paste. I run 7 Ultimate 32, but there are instructions for most Windows systems, including XP, Vista & even Windows 2000!

I hope that you were able to solve your problem, and I hope that others find this helpful!

Thank you tckkitty for this useful information.

I solved my difficulty some time ago and am now happily using Windows 10.