Windows Update – Fix Windows Update Not Working on Windows 2012 R2 Standard

windows-server-2012windows-server-2012-r2windows-updatewsus

I recently inherited the management of a Windows 2012 server at a remote site.

I checked Windows Update and it has not been updating since March. When I tell Windows to check for updates, it acts like it is checking, but it seems to say that for hours. If I attempt to restart the windows update service, it seems to never be able to shut down. My only remedy seems to be rebooting to get back to the point where I can tell Windows Update to check for new updates.

The last successful check for updates says March 20.

The last time updates were installed says March 17 (failed).

The update history shows that one update failed for March 17, a printer driver update, but the history shows 13 failed updates for Feb 17.

Not sure what else to try.

Best Answer

Two of my three 2012R2 machines exhibited this behavior last April. They would hang at Checking for updates... forever.

I never learned exactly what caused the problem, but I did get it resolved by doing the following:

  1. Stop the Windows Update service.

    net stop wuauserv

  2. Delete the Windows Update cache directory C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution.

    Remove-Item -Recurse -Force C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution

  3. Restart the computer. (On one machine it required several restarts to actually get everything deleted from this directory, so keep trying if necessary.)

  4. Run Windows Update manually again. It will fail almost instantly and offer to run a diagnostic tool. Download the tool and allow it to run.

  5. The tool will find and fix some problems. At this point, run Windows Update manually again. Windows Update worked fine at this point.

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