I was working with a client recently and it had a problem updating Windows 7 PC. Basically, whenever they tried to run check for updates, they received the following error message:
Windows Update currently cannot check for updates because the service is not running. You may need to restart your computer.
Of course the reboot didn’t help. When we checked to see if the Windows Update Service was running, we found that it was running. So we are confused.
In this situation, you might be able to resolve the issue by uninstalling any currently downloaded updates and trying again. Sometimes the update gets corrupted and then Windows gets confused and thinks the service is no longer running.
Delete Windows updates
The first thing to do is stop the Windows Update service on your Windows 7 computer. You can do this by going to Start and typing services.msc in the search box.
Then press Enter and the Windows Services dialog box appears. Now scroll down until you see the Windows Update service, right click it and choose Stop.
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Now that the Windows Update service is disabled, you need to go to the following folder and delete all files and folders inside it:
C: Windows SoftwareDistribution
After you’ve removed everything, go back to the Services dialog box, right-click the Windows Update service and select Start. All files and folders will be recreated and hopefully you can start downloading updates for your PC.
If you’re still having issues, be sure to check out our previous posts about uninstalling and reinstalling all Windows updates, fixing Windows Update error code 0x80072efe, and fixing Windows Update error code 8E5E03FA. Enjoy!
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