Re-installing Win7

It's high time to replace the 10 years old motherboard and other
'outdated' hardware in my desktop computer. For smooth transition I am
preparing a 'things-to-do' list.

I am particular concerned re-installing Win7 - what precautions (do's &
don't's) should be observed and are recommended /before/ and /right
after/ installing Windows7?

Should I apply a software such as 'Never 10' or registry hack to control
Microsoft's unwanted upgrade to Win10 /prior/ downloading and installing
the huge amount of updates/upgrades?

Are some of the updates/upgrades are superfluous and can be tuned out?

hands-on wrote:
It's high time to replace the 10 years old motherboard and other
'outdated' hardware in my desktop computer. For smooth transition I am
preparing a 'things-to-do' list.

I am particular concerned re-installing Win7 - what precautions (do's &
don't's) should be observed and are recommended /before/ and /right
after/ installing Windows7?

Should I apply a software such as 'Never 10' or registry hack to control
Microsoft's unwanted upgrade to Win10 /prior/ downloading and installing
the huge amount of updates/upgrades?

Are some of the updates/upgrades are superfluous and can be tuned out?

GWX isn't working any more.

The updates/upgrades only make sense, if they have value
to you. If you don't feel that security updates make any
difference at all, you don't have to install them.

You could pick an item that matches your OS from here
and download it. And then Windows Update might work after
a reboot. I'm assuming SP1 is already installed, before
you do these two. I have Win7SP1 DVDs here, so I can do
these right away.

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/...aspx?q=3020369
http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/...aspx?q=3172605

The way you've cleverly worded your question, suggests you
are using a System Builder OEM disc for installation, rather than
a Retail (more expensive) disc. The System Builder OEM "belongs"
to the first motherboard you installed to. You may need to
do a phone activation, and cook up some story how the previous
motherboard failed, and oh, by the way, you changed the CPU and
RAM while you were at it :-)

The activation server for WinXP was changed, to not flag
OEM installs. And that's to reduce the size of the phone
support staff to answer activation queries for WinXP. Now
that Win7 is not available (from Microsoft at least) for sale,
perhaps the activation server will be cranked down a notch
as well.

If you have Retail discs for installation, then there
won't be a problem. Hardly anyone bothers with Retail,
instead choosing to "play roulette" during later
activations. It's good fun :-) The last time I had
to do a phone activation, the process was automated
and no human was involved.

Paul

On 12/23/2016 10:32 AM, Paul wrote:
hands-on wrote:
It's high time to replace the 10 years old motherboard and other
'outdated' hardware in my desktop computer. For smooth transition I am
preparing a 'things-to-do' list.

I am particular concerned re-installing Win7 - what precautions (do's
& don't's) should be observed and are recommended /before/ and /right
after/ installing Windows7?

Should I apply a software such as 'Never 10' or registry hack to
control Microsoft's unwanted upgrade to Win10 /prior/ downloading and
installing the huge amount of updates/upgrades?

Are some of the updates/upgrades are superfluous and can be tuned out?

GWX isn't working any more.

Okay, (though I referred to 'Never10' by GRC).

The updates/upgrades only make sense, if they have value
to you. If you don't feel that security updates make any
difference at all, you don't have to install them.

I do value Updates/Upgrades of an OS and any associated
software/hardware but loathe being duped into upgrading to an operating
system that I don't want!
In order to avoid this, are there any precautions to be implemented
prior downloading/installing updates or has this issue gone away?

I tend to think that a targeted registry hack may be a good solution...

You could pick an item that matches your OS from here
and download it. And then Windows Update might work after
a reboot. I'm assuming SP1 is already installed, before
you do these two. I have Win7SP1 DVDs here, so I can do
these right away.

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/...aspx?q=3020369
http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/...aspx?q=3172605

I am happy to apply all updates as long Win7 won't upgrade itself to
Windows 10!

The way you've cleverly worded your question, suggests you
are using a System Builder OEM disc for installation, rather than
a Retail (more expensive) disc.

-cut-

I have a retail version of Win7SP1.

hands-on wrote:
On 12/23/2016 10:32 AM, Paul wrote:

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/...aspx?q=3020369
http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/...aspx?q=3172605


I have a retail version of Win7SP1.

Then this is a big headache solved.

Install should be straight forward. The Install
part, not the Windows Update part...

*******

After Win7SP1 is installed, download those two above.
Disconnect the network cable. Reboot.

Double-click the MSU from the downloads of those
two and install them.

Reboot.

Reconnect the network.

The purpose of disconnecting the network, is
so wuauserv won't go into a loop while trying
to do "fully automated" Windows Update. You
could shut off Windows Update using the preference
setting for it, then do '369 and '605. Which might
achieve the same thing.

The bottom line is, if you double-click '369 and
it just spins its wheels and doesn't do anything,
that's a svchost:wuauserv problem. If the network
is disconnected, then it's hard for the wuauserv
problem to kick off. And then maybe wuauserv will
respond when '369 politely communicates with it.

And the purpose of the above two updates, is so
Windows Update will respond and paint the update
list so you can finish your updates. That's all
the above recipe is for. To try to get Windows Update
to respond. Note that, the recipe for "fixing" Windows
Update changes after *every* Patch Tuesday, so there
are no guarantees with any of these recipes. Since
the symptoms change each month, nobody has the time
to sit around testing this stuff over and over
and over again...

Microsoft need to fix this, not us. The above is
"a recipe", but it will never be "the final recipe".

If you want to patch up a system manually, you can
use MBSA 2.3 (Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer).
It will list security updates. Once you install
all security updates that cause wuauserv to spin
in a loop, *then* Windows Update will display the
list of Optional Updates in five minutes or less.

If you don't patch anything, and leave your freshly
activated Win7SP1 sitting there, it could take
more than 24 hours for the update list to appear.
I have not timed recently, what the actual delay
is. It could be quite quite large this week.

The problem is, the Microsoft patch concept does
not "scale" properly. If there are a 1000 updates
in existence, it will take a zillion years to
do the calculation the Microsoft way, to figure
out which set of updates actually apply to a system.

The MBSA 2.3 approach, plus using catalog.update.microsoft.com,
allows a user to bypass this nonsense. But at the cost
of a lot of manual intervention. I have done this
*several times* in the month of September, bringing
a bunch of OSes up to the level I wanted, *by hand*.
I ended up with a bit of shoulder and back pain from
sitting there so long playing with it :-(

There is a Convenience Rollup you could install
after the above two, but this will have no impact
on Windows Update appearing for you. And this
still leaves a pile of outstanding Win7 updates.
The Convenience Rollup makes the list shorter.
So this is optional. You can get the update
from catalog.update.microsoft.com since Windows Update
won't be working well enough to do it from there.
There is no Get Windows Ten (GWX) in here. There
could very well be CEIP files or universal app runtime
files.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/kb/3125574

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/...px?q=KB3125574

Reinstalling Win7 is good Rocket Scientist training materials...

Good luck (really!),

Paul

On 12/23/2016 11:06 PM, Paul wrote:
-cut-
Reinstalling Win7 is good Rocket Scientist training materials...
Good luck (really!)
Thanks for detailed advice. This'll keep me busy for a while!