Slow Windows 7 Update Process Has Been Patched By Microsoft

Plenty of people are still kicking along with Windows 7 and will likely stick with it for the foreseeable future. If you’ve noticed that the update procedure for the OS takes forever — or never finishes at all — your salvation is at hand. Microsoft has released a patch that should sort out Windows 7’s slow patching process.

As InfoWorld’s Woody Leonhard explains, certain updates for Windows 7 from the past few months resulted in the platform’s update process slowing to a crawl.

Diagnosing the problematic patch proved difficult, but it was eventually traced to the replacement of Windows’ “win32k.sys” file.

It seems Microsoft has fixed the issue once and for all in KB3161647:

This update contains some improvements to Windows Update Client in Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. This includes the following:
 

  • An optimization that addresses long scan time for updates that’s reported on some computers.
  • Fix for a Windows Update error 0x8007000E on some computers while they are updating.
  • Some reliability improvements.

There’s a catch: to get a hold of KB3161647, you’ll need to install the June 2016 “roll-up” pack. Not the end of the world, but if you’re picky about what hotfixes you use, it’s a bit inconvenient.

Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: June 2016 [Microsoft, via InfoWorld]


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