Windows Update Failure

Aspiring techie

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Mar 24, 2015
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Hello,
I am trying to help out a friend with his computer problem, but I cannot figure out how to fix it.

Earlier this week, he attempted to restart his computer. It was stuck on the Shutting Down screen all night. He forced the shut down by holding down the power button. When he booted it up, all seemed well. However, when he went to work on Word 2010, it started glitching and it shut down after a few minutes. The same thing happened on Excel, but not Quickbooks.

He tried to restart the computer. It started to update, but the update screen hung. The update screen was on for a few hours before he forced it to shut down again.

I'm pretty sure that an update and Microsoft Office aren't playing nice, but I cannot figure out how to fix it. I've followed the steps in this tutorial: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbysymptom/a/windows-update-frozen.htm

I started Windows in Safe mode, but the updates wouldn't install.
System Restore was a no-go because Windows wasn't automatically backing stuff up.
I can't do startup repair because I don't have a Windows 7 Pro installation disk.

He replaced the laptop's HDD with an SSD 6 months ago. I think this is why Windows didn't automatically create Restore points.

He is running Windows 7.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance to all who help.
 
Hi,

A few things i myself would try.

sytem restore wont have an affect on your user files - so all is safe there.

you can create a repair disk from within windows. (backup and recovery)

Install the updates 1 at a time, if 1 fails determine if the update is critical or optional - might be worth uninstalling update and hiding update.
 
@ClassicD
System Restore won't work. There is no recovery partition built in. My friend installed an SSD a little while ago, so I don't think he created a recovery partition. In fact, Control Panel says that Windows Backup hasn't been set up.

How would a repair disk work? Does it basically act like a Refresh on Windows 8? Does it require a backup partition to work?

How do you update 1 at a time manually (sorry for the noob question)? How would you do that on Control Panel?

By the way, do you think the SSD could be the culprit? I have tried to access Windows Update on Control Panel, and all that's happening is that the circle thing has appeared and nothing happens. I have closed Control Panel and opened it again, and the same thing happens. In fact, I have to close Control Panel via Task Manager because Control Panel freezes.
 
System restores are stored on your local C:\ drive hidden under C:\System Volume Information. Its not on the 100MB partition - these are boot files etc and the recovery environment.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/system-restore-faq#1TC=windows-7

If you goto any windows 7 to create repair CD (winRE) disk - Control Panel\System and Security\Backup and Restore\Create a system repair disk.
boot to disk and use.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/Create-a-system-repair-disc?

If you want to install updates 1 at a time after the system restore select an update 1 at a time using the check box - Control Panel\System and Security\Windows Update\Select updates to install.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/install-windows-updates