Windows Updates that don't

[ahhaa]

I've mentioned my old Toshiba with the 4:3 screen that I like for writing 'cause in technical terms it's taller. It's dual boot Vista/Mint.

Well, that little reminder popped up and said there were updates to be had, and sure enough there were 20 of'em; but most were like 72K with only a few running into the multiple megs.

Well, I looked at them and they were all security-related so I gave the go ahead. A couple hours later, it still said '0% Downloaded'.

So I canceled out and tried again, same deal, so I went into the list and de-selected any updates that were over a meg. I had like 8 updates that amounted to 3 megs or so. Another hour and zip downloaded. (Yes, I checked and when using the browser my net connection was actually better than usual.

So, what gives? Is M$'s server so busy they can't deliver a few updates, after annoying me by telling me to get them?
I had an email from them that they were chopping OneDrive free storage way down too, but that was a while back.

[redwudz]

Years ago, communications with MS servers were very fast. Not so these days. I guess it's a money/bandwidth saving strategy.

I notice with my W10 laptop that updates take quite a while to download. And they slow the LT down quite a bit.
I wonder how businesses deal with these slow updates when they are trying to work?

If you are running an OS older than W7, I would probably just skip those security updates.
MS Defender and MS Firewall never did much anyway, IMO.

And if they (MS) haven't fixed the security problems by now with older OS's, there's not much hope that they will in the future.

I just turn off the updates and use a external updated malware program and a external updated firewall instead with my older OS's. No MS updates.

[davexnet]

There was a rumor that the older OS's had their WU priority reduced to give higher bandwidth to Windows 10 related stuff.

[aedipuss]

it's a common problem recently. just let it run until they download and install. eventually it will happen.

[hello_hello]

Windows Update isn't super reliable. I'd just try it again in a day or so.

[leghorn]

I had this same problem like OP. With 20 updates or so it just wouldn't download at all. I tried installing a smaller number of updates, like 5 or 6 at a time. That worked for me. It certainly was a PITA but probably faster than waiting for 20 updates to eventually download.