servicestroubleshootingwindowswindows 7windows update
Many websites, including SuperUser, recommend restarting the Windows Update service in order to fix the common problem of Windows Update getting stuck at 0% downloading.
When I try to stop the Windows Update service (via services.msc), Windows 7 SP1 attempts to stop it, but then after waiting a few minutes, reports that it cannot stop the process.
How can I stop the Windows Update process so I can restart it?
Are you sure you do not have the mentioned version of the Intel Graphics driver installed? It might be disabled so it does not show in DxDiag.
In my case this was the reason for SP1 not being offered by Windows Update. I once used the onboard graphics so the Intel driver was installed at some time. Then I added a PEG graphics card and disabled the onboard device. So the driver was present but could not show up in DxDiag. I enabled the onbord graphics card again in bios and after rebooting Windows Update found an update for the Intel driver. I installed it and after rebooting and searching for updates again SP1 was offered as it should.
OP Update: This turns out to be the answer. Even though i didn't have the Intel GMA adapter "installed" i did have the "old" driver on my system. Disabling my nVidia PCI Express video card in the BIOS, and enabling the built-in (Intel) adapter, and the Intel graphics card was then installed in Windows:
A check of available updates in Windows Update showed me an update to the driver for my Intel GMA graphics adapter:
Applying the update, restarting, and now i have Windows 7 Service Pack 1 available on Windows Update:
It's unfortunate that no Windows Update Log, or the Event Log, showed that the presence of an old version of a driver is preventing the publishing of an update. i would have hoped that the issue could have been debugged, rather than inferred.
Windows Update has the capability to be exceedingly windy and verbose. Even if it only downloads one small update, it can still generate three types of logs telling you what happened.
These three types of logs are:
The text file which the PowerShell Get-WindowsUpdateLog cmdlet saves to your desktop.
Event Viewer > Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > WindowsUpdateClient > Analytic.
Event Viewer > Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > WindowsUpdateClient > Operational.
I looked at the first of these three logs, then in a recently-created subfolder of C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download. I soon realized that Windows Update was indeed still downloading updates, even though the progress indicator appeared stuck at 95%.
Eventually (maybe after several hours), Windows Update finished its downloading. It announced that the updates were ready to install.
Best Answer
When you attempt to stop a service but after a while it reports back with an error and either it is stopped and doesn't start anymore, or it is still running and you just can't stop it, then the software of the service crashed and Windows is unable to stop it normally.
What I mean with software part of the service is the following. Like a driver for your computer, a service is just a program that runs on your computer. When a program is installed as a service, it runs invisibly and it can be configured to automatically start when Windows starts. To interact with the service, you have to go to the services tab and you can start/stop the program there, or disable it.
When you choose to stop a service, the service program is interacted with, sending a request to stop it. This allows the service program to stop normally, executing some pre-shutdown commands, and then terminate.
Now, if you attempt to stop the service, but the service is not responding, it is waiting for the service to shutdown. Normally, when a service does not respond, it is automatically stopped by Windows. But there is the rare chance, that the service is running, but for some unknown reason, the shutdown command is queued and its waiting for another task to complete first. If this is the case, the service could have crashed.
If you use software like Process Hacker, you can manually terminate the process that is responsible for the service and refreshing the services list should now list the service as stopped and it can be started normally again.
If you don't want to use additional software, simply reboot the computer, and after a complete reboot, the first thing you want to do is stop that service, though rebooting may fix the issue you are trying to solve in the first place.