Solution to ‘Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running. You may need to restart your computer’. Dec 2017

Anonymous
2017-12-11T20:19:37+00:00

I have seen many people experiencing the problem of ‘Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running. You may need to restart your computer’.

Today, 11th Dec 2017, I have had exactly the same problem with going in to Windows Update on Win 7 PC’s and getting this same scenario when I try to update windows.  I go in to Control Panel and Windows Update.  There is a red X in the box and when I click ‘Check for Updates’ I get the message

‘Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running. You may need to restart your computer’.

I restarted the PC and still had the same the same problem and I also checked the Update Service was running and it was.

I have One laptop and 4 PC’s at home all running Win 7 so I tried the same procedure of updating and all but one had the same issue as above.  I contacted a few friends whom I know have PC’s running Win 7 and when I asked them to try updating Windows they had the same problem I had.  The settings in Windows Update varied from ‘Download updates but let me choose when to install them’ ,  ‘Install updates automatically ( recommended)’, ‘Never check for updates ( not recommended)’ .  Ironically, the only PC I found I could check for updates was the one set to ‘Never check for updates ( not recommended)’. So we changed the settings on all the PC’s to‘Never check for updates ( not recommended)’ and then rebooted & then tried to check for updates and we could in all instances.**  We then changed the settings back to our preference of either *‘Install updates automatically ( recommended)’*or ‘Download updates but let me choose when to install them’ and all is well again. So, it looks as though there has been a common problem with a previous Windows 7 Update that caused this update problem recently.  

Can anyone from Microsoft please look in to this as there may be many people thinking their PC's are being updated and they aren't!

Since posting this a year ago it's obvious from the responses that the above fix doesn't work for everyone but it's certainly worth giving the above solution a shot as it's so simple, if it doesn't then follow one of the other solutions mentioned further on in the discussion.  Once you have the updates working again the problem does not reoccur so obviously Microsoft fixed the problem in a subsequent update. I also notice that one year on and some people are still only just discovering Windows has not been updating all this time, so guess it pays to check updates are being installed occasionally!

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-02-01T14:15:44+00:00

    I recently ran into the issue of being unable to check for updates because I was getting the above mentioned error message (‘Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running. You may need to restart your computer’).

    I tried the suggestion of changing my update setting to ‘Never check for updates ( not recommended)’. I went back and tried searching for updates (after restarting the computer) and it began checking for updates. So for me, this suggestion totally worked and my problem was fixed! 

    I guess now I will run into the issue of having to do these "check for updates" manually.

    Thanks for the fix!!!

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-01-31T22:44:05+00:00

    PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANY SOLUTIONS TO THIS ISSUE!

    I tried EVERY solution in every forum post from windows and HP. Got nowhere. I decided to leave it alone and give me time to think on how to proceed and thats when it happened. after a whole day of not using my laptop i turned it on and used it for about 2 hours when the HP assistant told me I needed a re start, which I did. This was weird because nothing was updating, not even the HP assistant when I tried to check for updates. I went ahead and checked the updater from Windows and it so happens that the updates had loaded and were downloading. 

    I still don't understand why this happened but I suggest you do the same and give it some time to try and sort it out by itself. Everything is now updating and the windows store is downloading/updating apps once again as well. 

    HP Notebook15, running windows 10.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-01-28T11:43:20+00:00

    You dont even need to reboot, just change the settings to "DO NOT CHECK FOR UPDATES" then click check for updates and boom you are on your way.

    It is a sad day when MS cannot get their own software right.

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-01-21T08:33:07+00:00

    Thanks for that explanation VZ, much appreciated.  It was obviously a tricky one for Microsoft to put right because affected PC's that were set to receive updates automatically could not receive the required update to rectify the problem.  No doubt there are still folks out there on Win 7 with PC's that haven't updated since 2017!

    Regards

    dandm2015

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-01-19T03:53:06+00:00

    It's because "Never check for updates" unlocks Windows Update. For some days in early December 2017, a faulty source file at the Microsoft servers sent Windows Update with Microsoft Update enabled into offline mode, i.e. Microsoft Update was falsely instructed not to call the servers again by itself, regardless of the mistake being corrected at the server side on December 6th, 2017.

    So if you just manage to cause Windows Update to contact its servers by applying whatever setting, you're done. Of course using this method is almost sure not to remedy any Windows Update issue other than this very specific, temporary one.

    Regards, VZ

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