I dug out an old, little-used netbook that my wife had used for a course
and no longer uses. I want to hook it to my wi-fi weather station to put
it on Weather Underground's network.

The machine hadn't been used in two years. It runs something the Windows 7
"Starter Edition" - which was ok last time we used it. Since it hadn't
been updated in two years, I clicked to check for updates.

Two and a half hours later, it's still checking. Any idea where the
problem lies?