Updates that won’t install can be a major pain. A reader has gone months without updates. “I just saw your article about fixing failed updates on Windows 10. I’m having a problem with Windows Vista and installing updates. When I check for updates, the system just searches and nothing happens.
A Microsoft help article said that you have to let the updates search until they’re found…I let it search for more than 24 hours and still nothing. There were a couple of sites that explained how to install each update individually, but I think they were meant for computer tech people. Is there an easy and simple fix for my updates? My computer hasn’t installed or found an update since August.”
Are you set for automatic updates? Is there a chance that the updates have just already installed. Go to Windows Update and check your update history. If you see no updates for months, then we can look into some other solution.
Try the Windows Update Troubleshooter. Just click this link and scroll down for the Vista fix.
You can then download and install FixIt.
It may be able to detect and fix the issue.
Other possibilities could be a bad date and day for your clock. So make sure the time and date are correct.
Do you have enough free space on your hard drive to download updates? One suggestion I’ve seen is to make sure Internet Explorer is your default browser before attempting updates. The problem is that there could be so many small things causing the issue that it could require a lot of troubleshooting.
You can also check out this tip we did 5 years ago about installing stubborn Vista updates.
And though I’m no advocate of giving up on a perfectly good PC, yours is actually running on borrowed time. Support for Vista ends next April. So it’s possible if finances permit, that your time could be better spent finding out if your PC and be upgraded to another operating system, looking for a replacement device, and working on migrating your programs and files to the new machine. If the fixes mentioned here don’t help, we can keep looking. In fact, if any readers have suggestions for fixing Vista update problems, please let us know.
~ Cynthia
I had this problem on a couple of Vista systems and on a couple of Win 7 systems. The troubleshooter and the little fixit app seemed to help some but it still can take a long time to search for updates.
I also had problems that once it found the updates it would take hours to download them. It wouldn’t even really start counting the percentage for a long time, would just turn it loose to run all night.
I suspect that Microsoft may have reduced the number if servers servicing these 2 OSs, and even Win 8, in favor of Windows 10.
The reader does have to throw the system away though they just need to read your article on installing Linux. Linux runs great on these old Vista class systems, I have one with a dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 10.