After doing my year-end rebuild of my Windows 7 system, I went ahead and did a check for updates, preparing to wait for awhile as there were currently over 150 important updates for my system even after installing SP1.

So I waited … and waited … and waited some more.

After a couple hours, I knew something was up so I started searching for solutions. Finally I found an update that took care of it; an update was needed to fix the update process.

KB3135445 – Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

To apply this fix:

1. Restart your computer. I prefer to do a complete shutdown, wait a few seconds and then start it backup.
2. To be safe, disable any anti-virus programs you have running. This update might not work if they’re active.
3. From the above link, download the version of the fix that’s appropriate to your computer.
4. Double click on the file to run it and follow the prompts. The installation process is short and simple.
5. After the update finishes, restart your computer again.

When you run Windows update, it should now find any available updates within a reasonable amount of time.

If that update doesn’t fix the problem, there are a couple of others that I found out about when dealing with this problem on another machine.

KB3020369 – April 2015 servicing stack update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

KB3172605 – July 2016 update rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Again, be sure to disable your anti-virus software when installing these and possibly when checking for updates as well.