I used to be on a limited bandwidth connection so I usually tried to keep all always online things off such as windows update to avoid getting over the bandwidth limit. I have recently switched to a unlimited one and I wanted to update Windows to Windows 10, but whenever I enable Windows update it starts searching and remains stuck there, for hours. What could be causing this?
Just get an 8GB USB stick and download the media creation tool rather than use Windows Update to go to Win10
https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10
Fwiw, my update from 8.1 to 10 took around 2 1/2 hours, most of which was spent looking like it was stuck on a screen doing nothing. However, Woolen Horde’s approach is surely better.
What Woolen said: Simply do a clean install without all the legacy stuff by grabbing the Win 10 version that corresponds with your Win 7 version (Home / Premium / Enterprise etc.) and installing it. From v1511 on you can use the Win 7 key to activate Win 10 directly without having to go through the upgrade path. (I tip my hat to stusser for the info.)
That said, I’ve also just recently experienced the same problem. Cleaned an older PC in our office, re-installed Windows 7 for the sake of it running Win 7, not to upgrade. When I check for new updates, it’ll search and search without finding anything. It’s properly activated, I’ve also restarted several times… no dice.
This happened to me a week ago on my old Win7 laptop. I had downloaded the tool Woolen Horde mentioned and it upgraded my system just fine.
Yep, I just did this on my new build. Installed win10 clean, windows updated to 1511, then popped my Win8 key in and presto, activated. MS eventually got it right.
What kind of installation medium did you use? A Win 10 DVD that got shipped on launch? No idea which kind of version Microsoft now delivers via the media creation tool, but on MSDN there are ISOs for both, vanilla Win 10 and Win 10 v1511.
The media creation tool is 1511.
I already had a USB key with the win10 release version on it, so I used that. I didn’t bother installing a DVD reader in my new computer.
Thanks for the help everyone ! I didnt want to clean install because I didnt want to have to backup everything but oh well. Weird that updates are failing though, a friend has the same issue and he also has a genuine Windows copy so that’s not the issue.
It’s not just you. I haven’t been able to update IE or Windows 10 for months now. I can get every other update, but those two wouldn’t go through. I just haven’t shifted to 10 yet because I want to back everything up first… just in case.
Also maybe an issue worth being aware off (if you are not already), but many of the latest Windows 7 updates can hose your installation to the point of just installing Windows 10 being the best option. That is by design. I had a thread somewhere about what updates to Windows 7 to watch out for.
Oh stop it. No one at Microsoft is intentionally crippling systems to get you to fucking upgrade.
Especially if it’s the system you’d need to upgrade to Win 10 to begin with.
It really bites though because I’ve run into the problem on two different PCs now. In one case I got it ‘fixed’ by living it running and searching for updates over night. Prior that I’ve tried like 10 different fixit programs and tools from Microsoft, a few other tools - none of which helped. And updating Windows manually didn’t work because the patches kept being stuck in “searching for updates” mode once I ran them. What a bloody drag.
Where there is smoke…?
It’s going up your own assumptions? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.
Ah, yes. All that telling smoke.
Terry Myerson: “Satya! 200 million customers have chosen to upgrade so far, almost all of them directly through Windows Update! What next? How do we get even more people to upgrade??”
Satya: “I have just the plan…BREAK WINDOWS UPDATE”
Terry: “But…how will th-”
Satya: “DO IT NOW”
I have Win7 and have been resisting Windows 10 (because I’m a Luddite and Win7 works just fine). I have also been letting Win7 update automatically for years. And so far, I have yet to have any recent problems. Several years ago, I had trouble getting certain updates, but that got fixed fairly quickly, and my auto-updates have been humming along perfectly ever since. I feel like I should be worried, but I can’t quite muster the energy. I also keep hearing that Win10 will force itself onto my computer, but aside from that annoying “Upgrade NOW for FREE!” box that pops up about once a day, I haven’t personally seen anything like that either.
Now of course, after I said all that about not being worried, I suppose that one day it’ll take four hours to boot up and I’ll magically have Windows 10.
I was one of the people having issues with Windows 7 updates, and I decided to just change to 10. Why? Because every time I tried to apply any update, my computer tried to change me to 10. Security update? 10. Office update? 10. Silverlight update? 10. I simply couldn’t just apply the updates. This was not an exceedingly rare situation, and I just decided to update to 10 to end the hassle - I was going to eventually do it, anyway.
I don’t think anyone maliciously built a code to create that situation because it obviously doesn’t make sense, but I can understand some people imagining it to be so.
There have been a lot of experiences like that Dan, but obviously it is not all otherwise Giles would be in the same boat. For me it is all about the intent of a corporation (in any stage where an ideological/financial shift is required) in relation to my ‘falling out’ with MS. For decades they provided me a excellent (if not without the odd hiccup) OS platform, and i was more than happy to throw my money at them (whatever they were asking was fine by me) for that.
While Bill Gates was a bit of a genius, and liked money, he also understood the value of a ‘tool’ to it’s users, which is a big part of why Windows enjoyed the success it did. As the founder of his company that afforded him the space in a corporate environment to maybe not be as sharp-nosed/sharkish as he could have been, but keep in mind this did not stop the designed dominance of Microsoft in the home computer space (at home or in business), the deals with Intel, the anti-competition aspects in terms of browsers etc.
But behind all that was this genuine understanding that Windows was a tool, and people use tools to get a job done, and for a good while it was all about making that tool as good as it could be.
Pretty much once Bill left the company you had the typical purely corporate concerns (and pure in-it-for-the-bonus CEO’s) take over, and that resulted in where we are today, an OS that (for my money, or even for free) is no longer a tool that i use, but a service that uses me, the end user, and I have to change to the wishes of the tool. Not much of a tool any more really.
So that is an ideological shift, on the back of the pure financial shift to maximise profit (which comes from control) over all other concerns. So how do you do this with a ‘free’ OS? Well obviously it is not actually free, it comes with a catch and the hoops i am expected to jump through, and absolutely those coming down the road, mean the terms of my relationship to Windows have changed. It is no longer a simple transaction for a tool i use. It is much more nebulous, changeable and shadowy. So i simply do not feel comfortable using it for work, or anything to be honest. I will stick with the last ‘good’ Windows that worked as a tool i use, rather than a service that uses me.
But yes i have also stopped auto-updating my Windows 7 installs (not that i ever did that anyway) and check very carefully which updates i allow, due to the many reported issues from Windows 7 users in the brave new world of Windows 10. Ymmv.