Windows Update Hung on Finding Updates- windows 7 sp1

I apologize if this is in the wrong category.

This is really starting to *** me off,

before when your computer went belly up, reinstalling windows was time consuming, but not difficult.

now i can't event get the computer to find the updates it needs.

So, in short,

when windows 10 was released, i had word from friends that it was terrible and don't get it.

good thing i listened.

around November- January, my mother decided she was gonna try it,

i said NO...

long story short she was getting *** off.

at the time i was busy with my college studies.

as exams have just finished, she asked me to fix her laptop.

i said sure, unaware of the *** fire i  was about to take on.

I installed windows 7, sp1, 64 bit on a Dell Inspirion N1545 Laptop.

Windows 7 sp1, build 7601 x64 bit

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CPU=  2.20GHz  core 2 duo

4GB RAM

Bios version: A14 07/12/2009

as I progressed, windows finished it's thing,

and i began installing other things, such as Microsoft security essentials.

and then, i opened up windows update, to begin the onslaught of 200+ updates.

after 15 minutes of waiting, i realized something is wrong.

i started googling and going through forums, and found that this is not an uncommon issue.

a great deal of reboot and reattempts to launching search for windows updates happened. I started around 1pm yesterday, April 23, Sunday PST time. it is now 24hours later. and the story of this laptop does continue.

I tried multiple solutions,  with no luck.

listed here:

1) rebooting -multiple times

2) changing update settings- all. and rebooting in between.

3) disabling and/or turning off windows firewall ( this my own thought)

4) turning off Microsoft security essentials (disabling programs that may cause issues with windows update)

5) confirming that my time and date settings were set properly.

6) installing IE11- a lot of people said this worked for them, for me, nothing.

7) going into network settings and changing my internet connection to be 'shared' - one person a forum said this works, 2 others said it worked for them too.

8) manually going to the Microsoft website to download an individual update, in which it would download the application and then sit in a small message box with a progress bar. (more on this below)

9) starting and stopping the service that runs the windows updater.

10) Finally, after i had tried just about anything, i decided to give in, and wait.
 one person on a forum commented that his company regularly does windows 7 rebuilds, and this was a common problem for them, and his solution was mostly just set windows update to go, and wai it out.

I Tried this, No luck. at ~11:22pm
 last night i set up the computer in a cool area, ran windows update, let it keep checking for updates, as well as a manual update  to 'searching for updates on this computer'

around 11 am this morning I removed it, only to see the same window i had left open the night before. no progress at all.

i had opened Task manager as well, which consistently showed 2/3~3/4 Ram usage (out of 4GB) and CPU usage at 50%

it also logged the up time, showing 12hrs.

I'm sure 12 hours is more than enough time to find 200 updates.

as in the past, when i rebuilt My personal laptop, i recall that it took maybe 1-2hours TOPS (i recall 2-3 waves of updates) to get all 230 (170-54-12 kinda thing) or so.

This morning i tried a few more things, running a windows update diagnostic, which after running multiple times back-to-back, returns the same errors that it fixed.

meaning, it finds the same error each time, and says it fixes it.

and since I'm in the process up updating my computers, last night i did in fact successfully update my desktop.

Windows update Cooperated on my Dell Xps 8700

quad core intel i7-4790 3.4GHz

12Gb ram

Nividia Geforce Gtx 745

BIOS version A08 4/16/14

Running Window 8.1

Windows update on my desktop has only ever been a little finicky.
 but never really critically failed.

 

As well as my personal Laptop, a dell Inspirion N5010

 I attempted to insall updates this morning, all but windows 10 excluded.

The goal of this Post is to fix windows update problems,

and upgrading to windows 10 is NOT A SOLUTION.

I will never get windows 10, and in fact, i wish to change my desktop to windows 7 eventually.

specs:

windows 7 sp1,  build 7601 x64 bit

cpu: i3 duo core @ 2.27 GHz ( M350)

Bios version A15 7/19/2011

Ram: 4GB

Integrated Intel graphics

so, normally, my latptop doesn't have any issues.

I've rebuilt windows 7 on it 2 or 3 times,

and all of a sudden, windows update will not work.

i did a big purge of updates on october 14, 2015, and since then it's been mostly Security Essential definition updates. as well as a thousand IE 11 update fail

taking note of the suggestion listed above, i will try to update IE11 to try to make my laptop work

as for my mother's laptop, i just reinstalled windows 7, as it was mention in a forum that sometimes re-doign the reinstall might work.

As for now, i am completely fed up at Microsoft.

as many many many forums have stated that this problem has arised in June 2015, the release of windows 10. and it is ***  that Microsoft is forcing their *** operating system on us.

Any help is appreciated.

my desktop is fine.

my laptop is just not  downloading the 40 updates.

my mothers laptop just won't even find the updates.

the main concern is getting my mothers laptop running.

my laptop still runs very smooth, with <1min boot time.

i use it for youtube, and a particular game, am not worried if it is updated now or in july.

note: both laptops are 500GB HDD.

note 2:

I will not be trying anything until i get a response to this post.

Bryce

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