KB3161647 - Fix for long-winded Windows Updates?

[Welshjim]

So many people are complaining about the long time it takes to download Windows Updates on Win7. I wonder why this Update was declared only as optional by MS.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3161647

[jdc2000]

Possible reasons:

1. It is not needed on some systems where downloading updates is not an issue.

2. Microsoft does not really want you using Windows 7. Anything that can push you into "upgrading" to Windows 10, like Windows 7 updates taking forever, helps them out.

[Midknyte]

Note that you can't install KB3161647 by itself; it has to be installed with the update rollup KB3161608.

You'd have to install KB3020369 first and then KB3161608. KB3020369 had its own share of issues.

There are also other possible fixes:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/308...ate-scans.html

The monthly Win7 patch whack-a-mole has been reaching Keystone Kops proportions. In April, poster EP on AskWoody.com discovered that installing two completely unrelated patches -- KB 3138612 and KB 3145739 -- could reduce Win7 update scan times from hours down to minutes. In May, EP found that installing a totally different patch, KB 3153199, also did the trick. In June, the magic bullet came from KB 3161664. All of these solutions had one thing in common: they involved replacing win32k.sys. Apart from that, they seemed to be completely random.

I prefer to do offline installs anyway. You can try Autopatcher.
http://www.autopatcher.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

[HAN]

I can second Midknyte's post. Make sure you have already installed KB3020369 and then install KB3161608 (which includes KB3161647 as one of the rollups.) I have done this 3 times and on those machines, update polling is no longer than 5 minutes. Many times, it's less than that.

Finally!!

[Welshjim]

For what it is worth, I got the Windows Update notification icon in the Systray yesterday. When I clicked on it I got the WU site with a notice that I should "Check for updates"--not the usual notice of the number of updates that were already available.
I clicked on "Check for updates", and two hours later the scrolling stopped and I did get notice of the available updates. There were 11. I made sure none involved Win 10 and proceeded to download and install. That took only about 40 minutes. So checking was the bottle neck and downloading and installing was fairly efficient.