Win 7 Pro.
Anyone getting this message?
I do have "check for updates but let me choose whether
to download and install them" selected.
I don't know why the screen capture pic won't upload, it's
only a 144KB jpg but it says:
"Windows update cannot check for updates because the service
is not running. You may need to restart you computer."
Restarting doesn't do it.

As a first step don't just restart the system. Shut down and totally remove power by disconnecting the power cord. If a laptop also remove the battery. Tap the power button a few times and reconnect power and start. Try Updates again.

If the above fails we will go through the process of repairing Windows Updates.

As to the failure of uploading your screenshot it is possibly the size. A jpeg image of 144KB strongly points to the possibility that the 'physical size' is too large. If the width is over 1024 pixels it will be refused. This restriction is intentional as larger sizes will 'stretch' the post and disrupt the display of the site throughout the involved thread on many monitors. You can use Windows Paint or another image editor to resize an image to a maximum of 1024 pixels.

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Go to your services and make sure the Windows Update service is running.

There's a new problem being reported by some users of Windows 7 -- without a screen capture, I can't say if you've been bitten by it or not.

Go with the above suggestions first unless the error presented is exactly as shown in the below articles.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-up ... s-7-users/

This article presents a few possible fixes/workarounds:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/m ... o-fix-it-/

This one appears to be the safest:
"To fix this, you can try setting your clock back to December 2nd 2017 and running Windows Update again. For me, it allowed Windows Update to run and download and install updates."

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stephen boots
Microsoft MVP 2004 - 2020
"Life's always an adventure with computers!"

I checked Windows update this morning and there was one waiting for me. It installed OK and now the message says I am up to date. So I'm back to normal!
Interestingly, your remedy is similar to one I got for a TV that wasn't responding well to commands from the remote. The manufacturer recommended pressing every button on the remote with the batteries removed. After putting the batteries back in, the TV responded well.
Thanks.

Be careful if you use the uncheck the option to update all products. Had a devil of the time getting it to give me the option back. Ended up having to reinstall Silverlight to get the option back.

Once again MS, just make this stuff simple to use, especially for OUR ELDERLY just starting out.
Acadia

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The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson

I take it by the quote that cutting power worked. You are welcome.

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While I often agree to an extent I don't really see where making things easy applies in this case. Cutting power to a system is more about resetting hardware than anything with the operating system.

BTW, nice to see your winter avatar again. My car once again has antlers and a red nose.

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I ran into the same issue as smitty yesterday and a reboot didn't help, i ran a manual Windows Update because I'd been down in England last week and wanted to be sure i hadn't missed any important updates.

I didn't take a screenshot but the exact error message(s) i came across can be found in the first screenshot in the following link:
https://www.wintips.org/windows-update- ... ta-solved/

To be clear, that's an old page i dug up from 2014 solely for illustration purposes so anything other than the screenshot is probably largely irrelevant.

That said, after i found the following so called MS "Fix it for me" option didn't work... it actually found no errors, go figure, i can't help wonder if MS are intent on shooting themselves in the foot now or if they're just slowly hell-bent on becoming incompetent?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/hel ... you-try-to

Maybe I'm being too harsh because that may be an old article, MS have stopped time stamping their support articles so it's all but impossible to tell what their latest and best practices are nowadays.

Anyway, in my case i resolved it by stopping the already running (Automatic) Windows Update service, rebooting, renaming the Software Distribution folder, rebooting again, then re-enabling the Windows Update service to it's previous Automatic setting.

Steve's (sboots) observation about changing the time/date on a local machine is intriguing, unless MS had borked the time on one (or more) of their servers why would that make a difference to an end user?
More to the point, why wouldn't MS admit to that if that's the case?

I'm sorry. I should have answered that when I booted up this morning that
Windows update was working again on its own. I didn't need to try your suggestion.

No worries Smitty. Just by the way you posted I assumed that you had done a power removal. Does not matter as long as things are working.

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