Saturday, December 31, 2011

Windows Update on Windows 7 failing at Configuring Updates

The Problem
So I had a strange problem. I have over the last couple of months had a problem where occasionally my computer when shutting down would have between 11-24 updates(it rose from the lower to higher) but when turning it back on then it would fail while configuring updates. If you are not aware of when this step is it happens before the computer finishes loading up after a reboot or shutdown. So since it failed it would revert changes and none of the updates got installed. This was on a Windows 7 64bit Professional machine. I ignored it since it wasn't causing me any problems(oddly I find I don't fix problems on my computers as fast as I do others) but it started getting really annoying delaying me shutting it down/starting up. This was annoying because it is a laptop that gets used heavily.

I was getting no error number and they failed whether I installed them while in windows or while shutting down. So I continued to troubleshoot. I even ran the System Readiness Update Tool from this previous post where I used it for previous such problems, which can be found here. It showed I had a clean bill of health.

The Solution
After this I then tried installing just a couple(4 updates) at a time. This worked. So I then continued to install the updates a couple at a time without mixing types(ie: security, critical, and so on). I was through this process able to install all my updates. It appears from this that one or more of the updates caused a problem when installed with some of the other updates. Sadly I don't know which they were. None the less installing updates in bite sized amounts may fix your issue too if you are facing a similar problem. You may even try one at a time. Good Luck and Happy New Year.

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