Thinkpads Forum

Cigarguy wrote:When it says "Checking for Updates..." how long did you wait? Without manually installing a few updates first, Win 7 can take up to 14 hours to do the first check for updates. I'm sure at this stage Win 8.1 is not any faster either. You might have to leave it checking for updates overnight, then almost as long waiting for it to do the updates.

Puppy wrote:This is known issue of old non-updated setup. The solution is here http://wu.krelay.de/en/

RealBlackStuff wrote:Micro is $hafting you/us with their "Downloads".
At least the "Direct link September 2016" ones work.

RealBlackStuff wrote:Have you no fantasy?
Click on KB3172614

Pokrzept wrote:It is not only you who has serious problems with W8.1 WU service. At this very moment I am trying to update remotely my friends L440 and it is stuck on searching phase aswell. You may try to download all the updates to your HDD by using WSUSoffline client and than install them locally.

RealBlackStuff wrote:Well, there were plenty good reasons why W8/W8.1 fell flat!
This is probably another foul trick to steer people to that crappy W10.
Personally I'll stay with W7 until it expires in 2020. No more Windows for me after that!
Never bothered with W8/W8.1 and I definitely don't want W10 or whatever else Micro$haft tries to stuff down our throats.
In the meantime I'm beginning to like Linux.

hyde wrote:I wish I could stay with 7. 7 was another reason why I loved my X220 so much.
Now with this T450s, 8.1 was forced down my throat, not to mention constant nags to upgrade to Win 10.

hyde wrote:PS: How does WSUSoffline know system specific updates, or does it skip those and install only "important" updates and not hardware-targeted updates?

dr_st wrote:

hyde wrote:I wish I could stay with 7. 7 was another reason why I loved my X220 so much.
Now with this T450s, 8.1 was forced down my throat, not to mention constant nags to upgrade to Win 10.

You would have the same nags with Win7 as well, and they were not so difficult to turn off.

If my outlook was working properly, I wouldn't bother with updates anyway but once things started failing, it felt like it was going downhill.

hyde wrote:PS: How does WSUSoffline know system specific updates, or does it skip those and install only "important" updates and not hardware-targeted updates?

AFAIK, it does not do hardware-targeted updates. There are very few "hardware-targeted" updates anyways, and they appear in a separate category. These are device drivers from the manufacturers; you can always get them later.

For Win7/8.1 you should be able to do without WSUSoffline. Try the suggestions here:
http://wu.krelay.de/en/

Pokrzept wrote:The WSUS Offline Updater download up-to-date list of packages directly from MS servers. Once you have all of the required packages on your hard drive Update Installer triggers verification procedure built in into the OS - same procedure that is being used by the Windows Update Client. After comparison between the downloaded list and installed packages the new list of missing updates is generated followed by the installation of those packages.

Due to the WindowsUpdate service "updates" made by the M$ last year system update procedure became an Overused word. You wont be able to do anything about it any soon and most likely it wont work as it should ever again. The best solution to reduce frustration to the minimal level is the mentioned WSUS Offline Update client.

And when it comes to the better system responsiveness - WindowsUpdate service build in into system runs 24/7 and when your system decide to check updates it consumes up to 2 GB or RAM and 25% of your CPU (1 Thread out of 4 when it comes to 2C/4T CPUs like yours). As soon as dealt with the update procedure it does not consume system resources any more.