HP Pavilion 17-g053us will not do a Windows Update after Factory Reset

[ChrisU_72]

Hello, 

I've had my laptop for over a year and I've never had problems with any of the Windows Updates; I always kept it up to date. Well, over time the laptop got slower and slower so I did a System Refresh to restore files without losing data. After boot up I ran a Windows Update and waited.  And waited. It never went through, I even left it running all night. I then tried to do a manual Windows Update, following the instructions on the Microsoft site and it only stuck on "checking for updates installed on computer" when clicking on the first download (KB 2919355). I tried the Windows Troubleshooter both online and from the Search feature locally, still nothing. Everything I did, Windows Update just would not work. So, I did a destructive Factory Reset, to put the laptop back to factory settings.  As you may have guessed, Windows Update STILL won't work!

I did a Factory Reset first using the Recovery partition, then when I couldn't get the Windows Update to work, I used the recovery DVDs that I made from the laptop a while back. Still no luck. I have a USB that I ordered from HP which is a Recovery Kit and I even used it. STILL NO LUCK!!! I can't even get Windows Defender to update definitions.

To sum up everything: I have done a Factory Reset several times using different methods and no matter what I try, Windows Update just hangs for hours on end. I have tried all options from Automatic to "Let me choose when to install Windows Updates" and nothing works. I have watched the "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download" directory to see if anything even downloads and just the same 3 files appear even after deleting them and rebooting.  It never goes any further.

I am at a complete loss. I have been trying to fix this for almost a week and have gotten nowhere.

Anyone have any suggestions?  Thanks....

Oh, I have downloaded and updated BIOS and other drivers that I downloaded from the HP site, but nothing will fix the Windows Update issue.

[banhien]

Hi,

It is a pain actually. Microsoft should make people to update Windows a bit easier. After a long time, your machine may have few dozen of outstanding  KB's and the checking process will take ages (well hours). Please try:

           https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2714434

Regards.

[ChrisU_72]

Thank you for your reply, but I did try that as well. Still no luck.

I have tried the WSUS Offline Update10.8 software that I found through much research and it seems to download several updates. It runs through the C++ Libraries and .NET Framework ok, except for dotnetfx35, where it just hangs. Once the error msg pops up, it continues to the actual updates...  I see the first try to begin and the messagebox reads: Searching for installed updates... and it never passes that stage. I see a new folder appear on the C:\ drive  where all of the files have been extracted from the update file, but they never install.  This is true to any and all updates that I have tried to download and manually install.

Last night, again, I let it check for updates (after running the Windows Update Troubleshooter FixIt Utility and then went to bed.  Woke up this morning and it was still checking for updates and found none.

When I first got the laptop, I was able to do upates just fine.  Now, I cannot.  I even tried disabling Windows Firewall and that did not help either.  

[ChrisU_72 · Accepted solution]

Just an update, I was able to fix this myself.  What I did was rename the HDD.  It was labelled "Windows" and immediately after I renamed it "MY_HDD" the automatic Windows updating started on reboot. I know this because I kept watching the DOWNLOADS folder in the Software Distribution folder.  Nothing ever appeared in that folder no matter what I did and rebooted.  Simply renaming the HDD and rebooting seemed to fix it!  

I hope this helps someone else.  🙂