{"id":1536,"date":"2017-02-15T16:02:40","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T15:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nullalo.com\/?p=1536"},"modified":"2025-10-22T10:15:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T08:15:35","slug":"windows-update-stuck-while-searching-to-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nullalo.com\/en\/windows-update-stuck-while-searching-how-to-fix\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows Update stuck while searching: how to fix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On Microsoft Windows, it often happens that operating system upgrade using Windows Update hangs while checking for updates: Windows Update will search for updates, but the list of available packages is never displayed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The reasons for\u00a0this problem can be many, the most common are the following:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>your PC is infected by a malware<\/li>\n<li>the services necessary to update your PC, for some reason, are not properly running<\/li>\n<li>the local database of installed updates is corrupt<\/li>\n<li>some Windows files are corrupted and do not allow the correct execution of Windows Update<\/li>\n<li>Windows Update fails to auto-update to the latest version<\/li>\n<li>Internet connection is not available or DNS servers are wrong\/not updated<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Before proceeding with the following solutions, we recommend to<strong> let Windows Update check for updates for a few hours<\/strong>, because we noticed that on some systems this operation actually takes an extremely long time. All this must be done after <strong>disabling sleep<\/strong>\u00a0from Control Panel-&gt;Power Options, by clicking on &#8220;Change plan settings&#8221; and then setting the &#8220;Put the computer to sleep&#8221; to &#8220;Never&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If in spite of this you still have problems, the first thing to do is to <strong>check Internet connection and DNS<\/strong>: for the first one, just open a simple web page from your browser, while for the second one you can run the following command from the command prompt:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">ipconfig \/flushdns<\/pre>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Another fairly rapid solution, which in most cases proves to be resolutive, is to <strong>manually update Windows Update agent<\/strong>. This can be done by downloading the corresponding MSU file at the following links:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Windows 8.1<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-in\/kb\/3138615\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-in\/kb\/3138615<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Windows 7 SP1<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/kb\/3138612\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/kb\/3138612<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Before proceeding with the installation, you must <strong>stop the Windows Update service<\/strong> with the following command:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">net stop wuauserv<\/pre>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">With Windows Update service stopped, another thing you can try is to <strong>delete or rename %WINDIR%\/SoftwareDistribution folder<\/strong>: you will lose the history of all previous installed updates, but Windows Update will be forced to rebuild the local updates database and that could solve your problem.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For <strong>Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2<\/strong> there is another Microsoft fix, which can be downloaded and installed in the same manner described above:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/kb\/3102810\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/kb\/3102810<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Another attempt that you can do is to <strong>check and eventually repair\u00a0Windows system files<\/strong>, which can be done by running the following command at the command prompt:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">sfc \/scannow<\/pre>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There is also a Microsoft tool, which I believe is rarely decisive, which allows you to <strong>diagnose and troubleshoot Windows Update service<\/strong>, which can be downloaded at the following links:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Windows 7 SP1\/8.1<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-in\/kb\/2714434\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-in\/kb\/2714434<\/a>\u00a0(direct download link: <a href=\"http:\/\/go.microsoft.com\/?linkid=9830262\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/go.microsoft.com\/?linkid=9830262<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Windows 8\/10<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/instantanswers\/512a5183-ffab-40c5-8a68-021e32467565\/windows-update-troubleshooter\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/instantanswers\/512a5183-ffab-40c5-8a68-021e32467565\/windows-update-troubleshooter<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">So far, if all listed methods fail, your only alternative is to use a <strong>Window update offline tool<\/strong>, which can be downloaded at the following address:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/download.wsusoffline.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/download.wsusoffline.net\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The procedure is as follows:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>after you extract the contents of the zip file, open the &#8220;<em><strong>wususoffline<\/strong><\/em>&#8221; folder and click <em><strong>updategenerator.exe<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<li>check the version\/architecture (32\/64 bit) of your operating system<\/li>\n<li>check the &#8220;<strong>Include Windows Defender definitions<\/strong>&#8221; option<\/li>\n<li>click &#8220;Start&#8221; to start the download of available updates<\/li>\n<li>after download has finished, open the &#8220;<em><strong>wususoffline\/clients<\/strong><\/em>&#8221; folder and click <em><strong>updateinstaller.exe<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<li>optionally check the &#8220;<strong>Automatic reboot and recall<\/strong>&#8221; option<\/li>\n<li>click &#8220;Start&#8221; to start the installation of the downloaded updates<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>At this point of the article, with a 99% chance you should have solved your Windows Update problems!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Windows Update stuck while searching for updates: here are the possible causes and solutions, including an offline update tool<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1549,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[128,127,72],"class_list":["post-1536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-windows","tag-fix","tag-update","tag-windows"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.6 - 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