“I can’t talk right now, I have several thousand updates to install.” – Dr Sheldon Cooper.

I needed to deploy a Windows 7 SP1 virtual machine recently for testing purposes, and of course the first action post install was to apply the several thousand windows updates that were no doubt needed.

I needed to leave it overnight, so I thought I’d just use Windows Update which I assumed would pick the right cumulative updates. However, the update process would be unable to complete the search for updates. After a quick search, and a few articles later, I’ve found the right patches to apply directly after the fresh install of Windows 7 SP1. You do need to pick your architecture though.

Windows Update Agent

April 2015 Servicing Update

Convenience Rollup

Once those were applied, Window Update was able to discover the remaining updates, although this would still take several hours, giving the impression that the process had frozen. With patience though, it will work.

~ Mike