Windows 7 Checking For Updates stuck forever

Please try the following: Set automatic updates to "Never check for updates" and restart Windows. Install KB3020369 and KB3172605 (in this order).

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3020369

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3172605

Regards, VZ

This is paranoia. What personal data could be stolen from a computer immediately after clean install of windows ?!? Sorry for reacting, but I'm searching for solution to the same problem I have with updates, but such useless answers does not help me at all.

I have fresh install, windows 7 64 bit on virtual machine for test purposes. Machine is domain joined, added to a test OU where a policy exists causing automatic updates by WSUS to be enabled. WSUS is working - many other machines update without problem, including two others from the same OU and in the same network segment. WUAUSERV eats 50% of processor time and 50% of memory and does nothing for hours. WSUS says machine never checked for updates. What I'm supposed to do, and WHY I'm supposed to do something on a freshly installed Windows 7 to make it work as designed! Or it is stuck by design? Sorry for that, but I'm frustrated, because I need to setup a test machine, to reproduce another problem related to Office 2010 and Office 365 which I have opened case for, and I can not make Windows work as expected for 10 hours already. That's ....

This thread was started long ago, so I fear this response will be buried (being it is on page 16) and few will benefit from it, but I will post it anyway.  Perhaps it will find its way to someone and help.

..... My update on Windows 7 was slow as a snail, it would take hours to scan for updates, and it would take hours sometimes to download updates after I had reviewed the available updates and gave Windows 7 the go-ahead to download and install them.  (I don't have my computer set up to be automatic download/update). 

..... I tried to fix this, and then it got worse.  My computer would run for two days scanning for updates and would not finish scanning.  In other words, the scan would not finish; I could not see whether I had updates for my system, and consequently, I could not download updates.  I was stuck. 

..... Eventually I fixed this - it took about two weeks of trying things (an hour here, an hour there) and researching things.    How did I fix it, what fixed it?  I am not sure because I tried a lot of things and I am not sure which ones made the difference.  I kept some records, I will post what I remember or have records about..

Part of the reason that I put attention to this problem is that I found that one svchost.exe was using up about 50% of my CPU when I was doing nothing at all ... so my computer was running slow as a snail.  One of these posts suggested turning off "Windows Update auto-scan".  I had my system setup to automatically check for updates, but do not download and install until I give the go ahead.  I therefore tried that post's suggest and changed my windows update setting to "never check for updates" and my CPU usage (when I was doing nothing) dropped to about 5%.  So I knew there was an update problem that was affecting more than just updating.  The problem was affecting everything I was doing. 

a)  I ran about 5-6 anti-virus programs just in case the problems were being caused by a virus.  I ran Microsoft Security Essentials.  I ran MalWareBytes.  I ran TDSS Killer.  I ran RKill.  I ran 2-3 others.  None of these found any viruses. 

b) I ran the "Windows Update" troubleshooter per this web page:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/971058

I ran this several times over the week or two that I spent time here and there trying to fix this.

I got this error message a few times (not every time): Windows Update error 0x800700005

c) I ran subacl.exe per KB968003.  I assume it fixed some problems, but I do not know for sure.  I reran the troubleshooter.  It says it fixed the problem causing error 0x800700005.  Updates still did not work, however.  Still ran endlessly scanning for updates, if any were needed.

d)   Reran troubleshooting and had error 0x800700005 again.  This web page "https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/a6d6df44-f19a-4c39-8ac3-14a2bbc9704a/windows-7-update-error-80070005?forum=w7itprogeneral" recommended running  MicrosoftEasyFix50202.msi  (found on "http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9665683")  So I tried this.  It did not fix the problem, but it may have done some good.  I assume it did not harm anything

e)  A couple webpages recommended I run  "sfc /scannow"  in a black Command Prompt window (in Administrative mode).  I did this.  It is supposed to scan code parts for corruption and fix the corrupted ones (either fix or replace them with original or clean parts).

f)  I ran the 'System Update Readiness Tool' found at "http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947821"  I downloaded the version of the tool for Windows 7 SP1 64-bit.  file name: "Windows6.1-KB947821-v34-x64.msu"

g)  The webpage "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/947821" told me to look in the 'CheckSUR.log' for unfixed corruption errors.  So I did this, and found I had "missing deployment keys.  Could not find easy fixes for this, so tried other things.  

h)  I installed the latest "Windows Update Agent" found at "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/949104"  This did not seem to fix the problem.  This was 2-3 weeks ago and I tried so many things I do not remember the response I got.  But I did run the agent.

i)  I could not determine if I needed updates using "System Update" in Windows 7, but I found this website: "http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Install.aspx?referringpage=Home.aspx" where I could look for Windows 7 updates.  I determined (after the fact) that this does not give a complete list of updates, but I found 9 updates.  Not all would download to my computer (don't know why), but I could download 5, so I downloaded them and installed them. 

j)  If I remember correctly, I reran Windows Update troubleshooter (from step a above) again.  If not this program then one of the other programs or troubleshooters, and it took a long long time to run (like 4 hours), but I just let it run, and to my surprise it finished and said it fixed problems.

k) I reran "Windows Update" and in less than an hour, it came back with updates for me.  This was 2-3 weeks ago.

L) I ran Windows Update last night, and in less than 20 minutes it came back with updates for me. 

Lesson: I do not know what took place internally with all the things I ran above.  And what I summarized above is not everything I did or tried - some evenings I would do 5-6 things and I did not keep records of everything, or the order in which I did everything).  Some of those steps may have done nothing.  Some may have changed a small piece, but that small piece was important.  Some may have changed and fixed multiple things.  Regardless, all together those things worked.  There was not a single fix in my case.  I had to run a bunch of (rather sophisticated) things.  Nothing as simple as some of these posts like tap into my neighbors wi-fi and download over their system.