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
    2018-02-14T17:35:16+00:00

    Your fix worked perfectly and was so simple.  I dont know how much time I spent trying all the problem solving steps that Microsoft recommends, and none of them worked.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-01-31T14:04:25+00:00

     This works for me.  All I had to do was as the OP says, set Windows Update to Never check for updates ( not recommended).:)

      I looked high and low before finding and trying this, and voila, that is all it took.  This post should be pinned.  It's highly curious to me why none of the posts I saw from Microsoft people suggested this simple and easy fix.  The only ones I saw suggested things that did nothing to help me.  

    I agree absolutely.  It took me a long time to find this discussion, and when I did it worked.  Microsoft should take note of things like this and make them easier to find.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-01-22T23:20:06+00:00

    This works! Now "Checking for updates..."

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-01-07T19:16:11+00:00

    Hello

    and thanks for the great advise. I too just had to change the settings to "Never check for updates"and back again. And that silly machine looked for updates right away

    Best regards, Paul

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  5. Anonymous
    2017-12-22T01:46:35+00:00

    Thanks so much, dandm2015.  Such a simple fix and it absolutely works, at least for me, so far.  I agree with whoever it was on this site who said Microsoft will never address this issue because they no longer have any interest in Windows 7 or the people who use it.

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