Cumulative Update for Windows not installing, more...

MarkyW

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I’ve had a major computer problem going on since about maybe about last November. I figured out a temporary work around that I’m still using. I’m finally getting around to explaining what is going on to see if anyone might know of an answer to get things working right and thought I would try here first.

First I’ll give the short quick version of what’s been happening, then just let me know if you need more details to figure things out, and I’ll add what I can remember.

Basically, my computer is slowing down to a crawl and going into a loop of sorts when it tries to install a “Cumulative Update for Windows”, which never gets installed. It has installed regular “Windows Updates”, but it’s the Cumulative Update that is wacky.

Before I figured out (sort of ) what was going on, I had noticed that the computer was at times acting slow, sometimes extremely slow. I would click on a program and have to wait 5 minutes for it to start. Or I would type in my word processor and letters would come up normally for a bit and then I would have to wait 5-10 second lag before the letters would show up.

My one friend came in from out of state for Christmas and stopped by. I explained some of this to him and he started the “Task Manager” and saw that the “Windows Update” service was at the top of the list of Disk Usage (Disk Usage was maxed out at 100%). He said he’s seen some viruses attach to the Windows Update service. I did think of possible virus problems and did a full scan just about a week before using my Avast antivirus and also Maleware Bytes and they showed everything clean.

I did some more looking around and that’s when I happened to find that the “Cumulative Update for Windows” was acting wonky. It would do a download for a bit, then go into a long “Initializing” step, and then it would start “Installing”. It would go a percent at a time at a decent pace until it got to 24%, then it stayed there for about 15-20 seconds. Then it would go up to 25% and stay there for about 30-40 seconds and then go back to the “Initializing” step and start all over. It would keep doing this over and over and Disk Usage would stay up around 100%.

I looked around online for what to do about Cumulative Updates not installing and found a few things mentioned. I tried a couple of them (don’t remember now what they were, that was back in December and my memory for those kind of details gets mixed up with all the info I’ve been going through). But they didn’t work. I did read about going into the “Services” app from the Search bar on the bottom left of my desktop and then scrolling down to “Windows Update” and click. Then I would click on “Stop” if it was running and then click on “Disable” and “Apply”. This stops it from trying to update so I don’t get my computer to slow to a crawl, BUT I have to do it every day because it resets itself to be able to run update.

I don’t know what the difference is between the Cumulative Update and regular Windows Update, but I would guess that there might be some things that my computer should have in those updates. And that’s why I would like to get things working correctly instead of just bypassing those updates. I do let Windows Update run once in a while so it can install the regular Updates that do install, but otherwise I keep disabling the Update feature.

Any ideas on what could be causing this and more importantly, how to fix it. There was one thing I read about, it was something about going to the Microsoft website and downloading a complete Windows update. I think it had a 3 letter acronym, but I forget it. It’s almost like a reinstall of Windows. That might be my last chance to try.

If you have any questions about what the computer is doing, just ask and I’ll try to answer them if I can.

P.S. Also, a couple other things that are going on with the computer that may or may not be related. Anywhere from about once a week to three times a week, when I start my computer and enter my password, instead of going to my desktop screen like it should, I get my Mozilla Firefox browser. I did look in Task Manager and under Start Up there is nothing for Mozilla nor Firefox at all. I have no idea why it’s doing that.

Also, 2 of my 3 USB ports aren’t working. I have an idea of a reason why for that. Back in early December I took my laptop computer upstairs and put it on my desk. I also had a glass of juice. Well, I accidentally knocked over the juice, but it didn’t go onto my laptop, it went on the desk, but I thought it might have had some splash onto the computer. I hadn’t backed up my QuickBooks so I came downstairs quick and plugged in my USB thumb drive and did the back up. The usual port I would plug that into was on the side I spilled the juice and didn’t think to use the USB on the other side of the computer. It backed up OK and I shut the computer down. The next day when I turned it on an icon came up and I got a dialog box that said my USB was trying to draw too much power. It eventually stopped doing that, although once in a while I see that icon flash for maybe a quarter of a second, but no dialog box comes up. Anyhow, the 2 USB 3.0 ports, one on the left side (where I did the spill) and one on the right side both don’t work. But the USB 2.0 port on the right side does work, so that’s the only USB port I have to use now.

Thanks for any help.
 
I can only give you sympathy. I've had the same or similar problems with two of my computers. Someone suggested editing my services, just as they suggested to you. I asked a friend who is very computer savvy and he said not to do so. Apparently, this type of thing is just what happens with Windows 10 updates on older computers.

The updates totally "bricked" one of the computers. The computer I'm using now sometimes can't find the SD card reader as a result of an update.

From what I've read, all older computers with AMD chips are doomed.
 
This laptop I have is an Intel i5. My sister got it for me for Christmas 2-1/2 years ago and it had Windows 10 (64 bit) from the factory. Everything was good with it for about 2 years. It's a Dell. My first laptop years ago was a Dell and it gave me good service for a good number of years.

Maybe I'll start looking for some Dell forums and see what's there.

But thanks for the sympathy.
 
Mike, I wish I had consulted you before buying a clean-reinstall of Windows 10 on this computer. I tried several "fixes" described online, including that troubleshooter, but nothing worked.

I just got it back last night and it's running very well this morning, but now I have to reinstall all of the programs we use. However, I will buy a new Office Suite instead of reinstalling my old Office Home and Student 2010 suite. The tech who did the work said that old software might have contributed to this computer's failures to accept Windows 10 updates.

The 5G wifi card I installed is working well (116 MBPS) and the new Bluetooth USB dongle should be here today, too. :)
 
Excellent! Windows 10 is rock solid reliable, you should have no further problems.

We have always used the OPENOFFICE suite of programs here, and have been very happy. They're compatible to open and save in the MS WORD/EXCEL/ETC format. It's a FREE product from Apache at openoffice.org and it is open source. No costs, no annual fees/subscriptions, no nonsense.

Apache OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

Mike
 
I still run Windows 7 but support for that will end soon and I guess I will have no choice then but to "upgrade?" to 10. Not looking forward to that.
 
I still run Windows 7 but support for that will end soon and I guess I will have no choice then but to "upgrade?" to 10. Not looking forward to that.
Yes, I'm sure a lot of us are in the same situation.

What is now my secondary/standby laptop is a 2013 Lenovo Y480 with an Intel i7 processor, 8 GB RAM, 500 GB SSHD, and a zippy GEFORCE graphics card. If Windows 7 will continue to run smoothly, I'll just keep using it. But at what point in time will there be problems with that OS when support stops? Will we always be able to upgrade? When I do, I should probably add more RAM, as well.

Should I upgrade now?
 
It'll still run fine, it just won't get software patches for known exploits. If you dont use email on it, and are careful where you browse, it'll be fine until the end of its useful life. A 6 year old computer will probably be slow compared with today's standards, and at some point we have to consider just getting a new computer with windows 10 instead of putting windows 10 on something that wasnt designed to run on it. There can sometimes be problems finding drivers for older stuff, especially when a vendor refuses to release them because the new OS came after that PC was discontinued. (Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc)
 
This tool from Microsoft will often fix a corrupted install situation. It will stop the service, clean out the temporary folder where the update downloads go, and restart everything clean. It's worth a try and max get you straightened out.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4027322/windows-update-troubleshooter

Mike

Thanks, Mike. I was remembering some things I read about doing and one was manually deleting the folder where the updates are located and then having it do a fresh download. I remember doing that and it didn't work.

I was trying to remember if I did this, but I thought whether or not I did, I'll do it again. When I ran it and saw it, I do remember doing it before, but I figured it can't hurt to run it again. I even paused my Dropbox sycing and antivirus in case that would get in the way somehow. So I let it do it's thing and then when it went to do the update it took a while to download the update and then it started with the initializing and then going through the percentages of updating. But, unfortunately, when it got to 25% it stopped and went back to the initializing step again. I let it go through that loop 4 times to see if it might get past it, but it didn't. So then I disabled the windows update service again.

You were talking with Jim Miller about word processors. I also use Open Office just in case someone sends me a Word document. But I prefer using Word Perfect, which I have an old version on my computer. I also have an old version of Quick Books. I know how to use software on the computer, but I don't know about coding so I don't understand how having other old software should keep Windows from updating. It's not like the update is going through that software. It would be like me saying I can't put a new faucet on your kitchen sink because you have an old air conditioner. I just don't see why that should matter.

I first got Windows 10 when they had the free upgrade which I put on my previous laptop going from Windows 7. I liked it. As I said, this laptop came with Windows 10 pre-installed. I liked it. But now since I've been having this problem, I don't know if I could say I consider it rock solid if it can't update itself. And it doesn't really give any clue as to why. I don't want to have to go to college and get an IT degree just so I can figure out how to get an update to work.

I'll be spending more time looking around the internet for answers. I'll see if I can find something about what I think I read about downloading a manual update or reinstall or something.

Thanks again for trying.
 
Well, I found this page about doing a manual updates.
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/ma...ulative-updates-virus-definitions-windows-10/
I hope it helps. It says something about doing this uses a stand alone installer (I guess instead of the auto one). It has a link to a Microsoft page that lists all Cumulative Updates and according to that and checking my OS Build number, my last successful cumulative update was on November 13, 2018. ha ha ha.

I'm probably going to spend a couple days copying all my art photos and customer photo restoration photos onto an external hard drive just to be safe, and of course do a back up for Quick Books and my pricing software, before I try this manual update thing.

Boy, do I hope this works.
 
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