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Mavrick88
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Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run - SOLVED

Tue Jan 30, 2018 7:01 pm

Hello,

I'm pretty tech savvy and I have searched forums for this issue with no luck. If anyone has seen anything that should help, please let me know. I have this ASUS laptop (X55u) and I have installed Windows 10 Pro on it twice due to an issue with Windows updates. This is a fresh install with a complete partition wipe and format each time. Windows update services will just say "Starting" and will not run no matter what I have tried. I have tried the Windows update troubleshooter directly from MS and that didn't help. It has helped me in the past with other PCs that get stuck on updates. The issue here is Windows update will just not run at all. I have found forums on how to stop services, delete Windows 10 temp directories on the PC, restart services, ect, ect. and none of that is working. I can't "stop" services because it won't even run. It won't start it just says "starting" when I look at Windows services. Windows update has never an on this PC at all. I'm using the same installation USB stick that I have on another laptop at the same time and that laptop is working just fine. Something on this laptop is just making Windows update stick and I can't figure it out at all. Grrrr.

I have also tried to disable the Windows Update service from running at startup, then enabling it again, but it just says "starting" again. Ugh.

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!
Last edited by Mavrick88 on Thu Feb 01, 2018 9:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
Mavrick88
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Tue Jan 30, 2018 7:15 pm

Just for reference, in case anyone else needs the Windows Update troubleshooter, I used this one here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/10164/fix-windows-update-errors

I followed this guide here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/971058/how-do-i-reset-windows-update-components

On step 2, I can't stop any services (because it says they are not running) except for the last one - net stop cryptsvc - that one works.
On step 3, it can't find that file.
On step 4, #1, it will not rename directories because "access is denied" and I'm running CMD in administrator mode, FYI. On step 4, #2, it does do this with no errors.
On step 6, registering the .dll's and on the 3rd one (regsvr32.exe mshtml.dll) it tells me it can't find the file. I look in /windows/system32/ and the file is there. I tried to copy one from another Windows 10 PC and overwrite it, it tells me that I don't have permissions. I activated Administrator mode and tried in that, it also will not let me overwrite the file.
I stopped there.
 
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:00 pm

I assume made the usb stick with the latest version of W10?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/softwar ... /windows10

So update just doesn't run at all then?
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Aether
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:31 pm

Have you activated yet?
 
SuperSpy
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Wed Jan 31, 2018 10:00 am

Aether wrote:
Have you activated yet?

This is the first thing that came to mind for me as well. I know under older versions of Windows, WU would mysteriously fail to do anything until you activated, then it would magically fix itself. I haven't personally seen this behavior under 10, but that might just be because I've become used to avoiding it.
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Mavrick88
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:23 am

SuperSpy wrote:
Aether wrote:
Have you activated yet?

This is the first thing that came to mind for me as well. I know under older versions of Windows, WU would mysteriously fail to do anything until you activated, then it would magically fix itself. I haven't personally seen this behavior under 10, but that might just be because I've become used to avoiding it.


I haven't seen that under 10 myself either and I've done hundreds of installs so I didn't think about that, haha. I did just activate it and restarted the PC. I came back to run updates, they still failed and under services, the Windows Update services is still just stuck as "starting." Booooooo!!

Thanks for the suggestion though!
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Wed Jan 31, 2018 3:43 pm

Do you have an SSD in that laptop? I'd try another disk especially if it's an SSD. I've seen some pretty weird issues arising from defective SSDs, and there doesn't seem to be things like disk errors in the event log, but after testing RAM and exhausting other ideas, tried a different drive and magically issues disappear. There doesn't seem to be a reliable way to test an SSD either. Hard drives seem to be less "voodoo" and usually log errors about bad blocks in the event log.
 
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Wed Jan 31, 2018 3:47 pm

Mavrick88 wrote:
SuperSpy wrote:
Aether wrote:
Have you activated yet?

This is the first thing that came to mind for me as well. I know under older versions of Windows, WU would mysteriously fail to do anything until you activated, then it would magically fix itself. I haven't personally seen this behavior under 10, but that might just be because I've become used to avoiding it.


I haven't seen that under 10 myself either and I've done hundreds of installs so I didn't think about that, haha. I did just activate it and restarted the PC. I came back to run updates, they still failed and under services, the Windows Update services is still just stuck as "starting." Booooooo!!

Thanks for the suggestion though!

Does it stay in the "Starting" state forever? IIRC there's supposed to be a (2-5) minute timeout on service launches. It _should_ error out after that with a reason.

I'd go trolling through the event viewer and see if there are any complaints from the service manager.
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Mavrick88
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Thu Feb 01, 2018 5:37 pm

[quote="captaintrav"]Do you have an SSD in that laptop? I'd try another disk especially if it's an SSD. I've seen some pretty weird issues arising from defective SSDs, and there doesn't seem to be things like disk errors in the event log, but after testing RAM and exhausting other ideas, tried a different drive and magically issues disappear. There doesn't seem to be a reliable way to test an SSD either. Hard drives seem to be less "voodoo" and usually log errors about bad blocks in the event log.[/quote

No SSD drive, but I have also suspected a faulty hard drive possibly. Scans detect no bad clusters or anything like that and give no errors, sadly. RAM and other hardware test OK from some quick tests I have ran. It's so very weird. I can't figure this one out at all.
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Mavrick88
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Thu Feb 01, 2018 5:41 pm

SuperSpy wrote:
Mavrick88 wrote:
SuperSpy wrote:
This is the first thing that came to mind for me as well. I know under older versions of Windows, WU would mysteriously fail to do anything until you activated, then it would magically fix itself. I haven't personally seen this behavior under 10, but that might just be because I've become used to avoiding it.


I haven't seen that under 10 myself either and I've done hundreds of installs so I didn't think about that, haha. I did just activate it and restarted the PC. I came back to run updates, they still failed and under services, the Windows Update services is still just stuck as "starting." Booooooo!!

Thanks for the suggestion though!

Does it stay in the "Starting" state forever? IIRC there's supposed to be a (2-5) minute timeout on service launches. It _should_ error out after that with a reason.

I'd go trolling through the event viewer and see if there are any complaints from the service manager.


Yes, it stays in "Starting" forever. And ever. And ever. Hahaha. I let it run all night last night and checked it in the AM, it's still "Starting" bleh. I'm going to try another 500GB hard drive just for kicks even though I haven't had any errors running diags and system checks. I'm actually using the laptop to reply to these forums. The laptop runs fast/great but it just will not do ANY updates and is stuck starting forever. I have reinstalled Windows 10 3 times now and same thing each time. The last time, I didn't connect it to a network so it couldn't "check for updates" during the installation process. After it finished and had another fresh install......same thing, Windows Updates stuck in "Starting" for hours and I didn't even try running Windows updates yet before checking it. It just absolutely hates something about this laptop. Grrr.
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Thu Feb 01, 2018 5:56 pm

You could try this:

Open an elevated command prompt and type "dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth" (make sure you've got an Internet connection). This will take several minutes. Once that's done, in the same terminal window type "sfc /scannow", then reboot once it finishes.

That doesn't always fix my problems with Win10, but it does often enough that it's usually the first thing I try.
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Mavrick88
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Thu Feb 01, 2018 6:04 pm

bthylafh wrote:
You could try this:

Open an elevated command prompt and type "dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth" (make sure you've got an Internet connection). This will take several minutes. Once that's done, in the same terminal window type "sfc /scannow", then reboot once it finishes.

That doesn't always fix my problems with Win10, but it does often enough that it's usually the first thing I try.


Yes, sadly, I did that already. :( Thanks for the suggestion though!
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Thu Feb 01, 2018 6:07 pm

Ok, here is something strange.........

I took out the hard drive and put in in a newer Dell laptop. Booted up, checked services, Windows Updates is running! What? So it's definitely something else in that Asus laptop that is causing Windows Updates not to run. It's running fine right now in the Dell laptop. I'm going to let updates finish on it and then try to put it back in the Asus laptop to see what happens. Maybe it will download some newer Windows update fixes and address the issue with WU not running on the Asus. Weird, very weird! :)

I do know it's going to be updating drivers and components based on the Dell laptop, but it's worth a shot anyway since I can't figure out why it just won't run on the Asus laptop. Luckily they are both AMD based and pretty close to the same chipset, so maybe that will help a tad.
-Mavrick88
 
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Thu Feb 01, 2018 6:20 pm

Mavrick88 wrote:
Ok, here is something strange.........

I took out the hard drive and put in in a newer Dell laptop. Booted up, checked services, Windows Updates is running! What? So it's definitely something else in that Asus laptop that is causing Windows Updates not to run. It's running fine right now in the Dell laptop. I'm going to let updates finish on it and then try to put it back in the Asus laptop to see what happens. Maybe it will download some newer Windows update fixes and address the issue with WU not running on the Asus. Weird, very weird! :)

I do know it's going to be updating drivers and components based on the Dell laptop, but it's worth a shot anyway since I can't figure out why it just won't run on the Asus laptop. Luckily they are both AMD based and pretty close to the same chipset, so maybe that will help a tad.

I give 3:1 odds that Windows Activation throws a fit and you end up on the phone with Microsoft Support.
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Mavrick88
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Thu Feb 01, 2018 6:51 pm

ludi wrote:
Mavrick88 wrote:
Ok, here is something strange.........

I took out the hard drive and put in in a newer Dell laptop. Booted up, checked services, Windows Updates is running! What? So it's definitely something else in that Asus laptop that is causing Windows Updates not to run. It's running fine right now in the Dell laptop. I'm going to let updates finish on it and then try to put it back in the Asus laptop to see what happens. Maybe it will download some newer Windows update fixes and address the issue with WU not running on the Asus. Weird, very weird! :)

I do know it's going to be updating drivers and components based on the Dell laptop, but it's worth a shot anyway since I can't figure out why it just won't run on the Asus laptop. Luckily they are both AMD based and pretty close to the same chipset, so maybe that will help a tad.

I give 3:1 odds that Windows Activation throws a fit and you end up on the phone with Microsoft Support.


I'm wondering that myself too. Because the Dell auto activated of course haha. We'll see. I really didn't have a choice to try to run updates on this one though since they will not run on the Asus no matter what I do.
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Mavrick88
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Thu Feb 01, 2018 7:00 pm

So far all updates are running just fine on the Dell laptop. Once they are all complete, I'll put the drive back in the Asus and see how that goes. I have a hunch that Windows updates will not run again, but we'll see. I can't think of any other hardware that would cause the WU to not run at all on the Asus laptop.
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Thu Feb 01, 2018 8:40 pm

Windows does not require activation for updates. This is an intentional design choice by Microsoft to help prevent widespread viral outbreaks.
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Mavrick88
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run

Thu Feb 01, 2018 9:42 pm

Update!

So, I let the Windows updates run on the Dell laptop and kept running them until there were no more updates to install, which took a few restarts.
I put the hard drive back into the Asus laptop and it took a bit for Windows to come up because it had to "Get Devices Ready" again, like a new install does.
Windows eventually booted up to the desktop and I gave it a few more minutes to finish up. I checked services and WOW! Windows updates is now "running" not "starting" anymore!! WU now run on the Asus laptops without any issues.

That did the trick. Getting updates to install on another PC, then putting the drive back into the problem PC. I did have to delete the Windows 10 key from the registery because Windows had an issue with activating (but I already knew this was a strong possibility) because it activated on the Dell when I put the drive in it. Putting the drive back in the Asus caused an issue with activation. I followed a forum from Microsoft on how to delete this in the registry and then I just added the key back to activate Windows again.

All done!
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run - SOLVED

Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:01 am

Well that's just special. I wonder if it is related to the Spectre/Meltdown patch dumpster fire...
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Re: Fresh install Windows 10 Pro - Windows Updates will not run - SOLVED

Fri Feb 02, 2018 11:35 am

I wonder if one of the Windows updates was for the wireless driver, if he was on wireless. I had enormous problems with Windows Updates failing on a Windows 7 laptop, then at some point it dawned on me to try Ethernet, and it started working again. The Windows Updates service seems to be really finicky sometimes when it comes to actually downloading the updates if it gets interrupted for some reason. Then again, it doesn't sound like OP's laptop was even getting that far.

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