14 DAY TRIAL // If you’re on Windows 7 and trying to keep your computer fully up to date, you probably know that there are moments when Windows Update simply seems to freeze and it takes hours to tell whether there are any new patches available or not - sometimes, the scanning process never ends, so it keeps looking for new updates forever.
This was quite a widespread issue that many of us experienced, and it appears that Microsoft itself was aware of this problem, so a new patch released on June 21 is specifically supposed to address it.
Part of the June 2016 update rollup for Windows 7
KB3161647, now at version 2.0, includes improvements to the Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and brings a fix that resolves the long scan time for new updates on Windows 7 computers.
Microsoft says in the description of the patch:
“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.”
This update is part of the June 2016 update rollup for Windows 7 Service Pack 1, so if you have already installed KB3161608, everything should already be fixed.
It’s not a surprise that Microsoft is working to address issues in Windows 7 since this continues to be the number one desktop operating system worldwide despite the arrival of Windows 10. Windows 7 will receive support until January 2020, and many users are very likely to stick with it until the very last months (and probably beyond EOS) even though Microsoft encourages everyone to make the move to Windows 10 with its free upgrade promo.
Windows 7 users have until July 29 to switch to Windows 10 without paying, so there are approximately 35 days left to perform the upgrade.