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Preamble

See also Win7HP SP1 Virgin Updates

I rely on free WiFi in public buildings for access to the internet. I am retired and while that suggests I have all the time in the world, my life is rich with concerts, vacation, day-trips, meetings with friends and colleagues, book-reading and enjoying the sunshine.

In early April 2016 I abandoned an attempt to update Windows on my DELL Win7HP SP1 laptop after waiting over two hours while Microsoft “Checked for Updates”.

Eileen’s Lounge provided some reading, summarised here:-

John Gray	Is anyone else experiencing problems with Windows Update?
Ask Woody	The windows update takes forever problem
Susan Bradley	Windows Update Components? for Win7
Stuck	KB3138612 wasn't listed on my Win 7 Starter Ed netbook
Ask Woody	Possible fix for the abysmally slow update scan
Hans	How do I reset Windows Update components
John Gray	KB 308 371 0 and KB 310 281 0
JoeP	KB 314 573 9 may help
Hans	An unlikely combination of two Windows Update components? Can reduce scan times from hours to minutes
Stuck	Delight!
Woody	Turn off Windows Update if you want to force-feed individual patches

My latest attempts (Thursday, May 05, 2016 and Friday, May 06, 2016) to update my system resulted in around 90 minutes spent Checking for Updates. This is significantly better than over two hours with no end in sight, but significantly worse than some claims for 15 minutes.

The actual download of updates took me only 20 minutes.

Installation of updates took over 4½ hours.

Configuring the updates (“Do not turn off your computer” took 30 minutes, give or take.

Bottm Line: 8:30 to 15:30 is seven hours with the machine devoted to the processes. WiFi speed is not an issue since the actual downloading took only twenty minutes (as shown by screen snapshots and Bitmeter readouts).

I can think of possible reasons for the time (7 hours) to be so long, amongst them:-

(1) My system is overloaded with applications installed sicne first I re-installed Win7.

(2) I continually pick bad days/times of day to ask Microsoft servers to do something for me.

I can think of possible discounted reasons for the time (7 hours) to be so long, amongst them:-

(3) Sixty percent (60 GB) of my boot partition is defragmented free space

(4) The laptop was purchased three years ago and may be five years old. It has 2GB RAM and is claimed to be a 2GHz CPU, although since it contains two CPUs, it may be that each CP runs at 1GHz. Truth in advertising.

Further thoughts:-

(1) I may have misunderstood the effects of KB3083710 and KB3102810. Perhaps these speedup patches are effective only after their predecessors have been installed. Since I was updating from scratch the effects of the two patches my have been minimal.

Appendix - Summary of Installation times

Time	Update #	Interval	#installed	#ins/minute
10:21	1
10:31	10	0:10	9	1.11
10:37	30	0:06	20	0.30
10:41	40	0:04	10	0.40
10:47	50	0:06	10	0.60
10:54	60	0:07	10	0.70
11:02	70	0:08	10	0.80
11:12	80	0:10	10	1.00
11:26	90	0:14	10	1.40
11:37	100	0:11	10	1.10
11:49	110	0:12	10	1.20
12:04	120	0:15	10	1.50
12:17	130	0:13	10	1.30
12:49	140	0:32	10	3.20
13:10	150	0:21	10	2.10
14:15	160	1:05	10	6.50
14:46	170	0:31	10	3.10
15:03	174	0:17	4	4.25
Summary		4:42	173	1.63

Appendix – Summary of events

Event	Time	Interval
Check for Updates	8:33	1:18
Download Update files	9:51	0:30
Installation	10:21	4:42
Configuration	15:03	0:27
Rebooted	15:30
Summary		6:57

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7092187927 CPRGreaves@gmail.com

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