Well doing some searches on the errors in the windowsupdate.log eventually led me to find that it the problem had something to do with my hard drive being large (1TB) and "Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST)" drivers needed to be updated. Once I got the driver updated my windows update started working fine. Thanks for the help that led me to the answer.
Windows 7 64bit: Windows Update Service Not Running (but it is running in services.msc)
I just got a new desktop computer (Gateway FX6840-03e) It has Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit (not sure what service pack, I'm new to windows 7 as of this computer so i'm not sure where to find that information). It came with a norton security that i didn't bother to activate, I uninstalled it and followed up with Norton Removal Tool. I then installed AVG Free 2011 edition
When I went to Windows Update I have the red x shield and clicking on the check for updates button gives me the error "Windows cannot check for updates because the service is not running. You may need to restart the computer." Windows update service is running in services.msc though.
The first thing I did that i had read about on the product reviews for the computer since it seemed to be a problem with a few other people that bought the computer was to disable the windows update service the go into C:\windows\SoftwareDistribution and delete everything in there and re-enable windows update service afterwords. According to the reviews this worked for most people. However the problem still persisted for me. Google searching has led me to these forums and i've gone through a few threads but haven't gotten a solution yet.
I've run the windows update troubleshooter with no luck
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Open-the-Windows-Update-troubleshooter
I ran the System File Checker tool
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833
It came back with one problem, but the log file created was blank
I ran the Fix It tool in both default and aggressive modes
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971058
And in one post somebody mentioned that ATI Catylist Control Center was causing their problem so I uninstalled that with no luck (I have re-installed that)
There have been many restarts between all of that above and now i'm not sure what else to try.
Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update
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Anonymous
2015-09-20T05:10:36+00:00 Well here I am. At the end of the thread (and several others) and at the end of my tether!
I've tried all the suggestions, carefully applying each one, restarting even when it didn't say to, and nothing has worked! Microsoft Monkeyshines (otherwise known as "updates") have got me this time! After applying the last batch on May 24, 2015, I've had growing issues. First, my system is no longer considered as running valid W7. This the system I bought new with W7 pre-installed and that has received all the updates up until this May! I can't use the Windows Update utility. As you can guess, the update service is running, but the Update utility doesn't think so. I can't use VirtualBox because there is a security bug also caused by the same batch of updates. I tried removing them, but no luck. I don't have a restore point going back far enough to help.
When I try to install updates that might be helpful, I get: Installer encounted an error: 0xc8000247. The suggested fix for this is the same as this thread.
I think it is shameful that Microsoft foists off such junk on users! We pay good money and expect a decent product. Instead we get products that self-destruct and no recourse except user forums - not that I'm knocking them, but there are problems they just can't seem to solve -like this one. I understand that Microsoft has fixed this problem in later patches. But, of course, I can't get to them.
Maybe it's just time to make that complete switch to Linux and ditch Windows?
Any help will be greatly appreciated. You'll have the satisfaction of saving my sanity!
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Anonymous
2015-07-30T17:16:42+00:00 I have tried many of the idea put forward but to no avail. Finally I went into the configuration setting after pressing F10 at start. I found that for some reason it was showing my solid state drive (my only drive) was RAID configured. After changing this to IDE my problem was solved! Don't know why?
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Anonymous
2015-07-01T11:28:02+00:00 Logged in to add my support to the 1TB fix. Running a Dell 560 and cloned a 1TB replacement HDD. All went well until trying to update Windows, with the associated Microsoft fixes and frequent restarts. The fix for us was to update the BIOS from A00 to A06 and subsequently update the chipset drivers. Happy faces now in the office here. I'm not sure which of the 2 updates was responsible for the success as we did them together but, as you can imagine, we're not bothered. Many thanks for the steer.
DcR C
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Anonymous
2015-06-14T13:40:47+00:00 I am not getting new updates for windows 7 64 bit even for defender software update also not getting please solve this problem